THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 


THE    MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

NKWYORV    •    BOSTON  •   CHICAGO   •    DALLAS 
ATLANTA   •   SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  ft  CO..  LDCTTBD 

LONDON  •    BOMBAY   •   CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OP  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


THE 
SIMPLE  GOSPEL 


BY 

REV.  H.  S.  BKEWSTER 


gorfe 
THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1922 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1922, 
BT  THB  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Set  up  and  printed.     Published,  March,  1922 


TO  MY  MOTHEK, 
ANNA  POMEROY  WILLIAMS  BREWSTER, 

THIS   LITTLE  BOOK   IS  REVERENTLY  AND 
AFFECTIONATELY    DEDICATED. 


PREFACE 

THIS  volume  does  not  purport  to  be  a  commentary 
on  all  the  details  of  The  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 
It  is  principally  concerned  with  the  great  currents 
of  thought  that  run  through  the  entire  discourse.     It  is 
little  more  than  an  elucidation  of  the  obvious. 

But  there  seems  to  be  a  call  for  just  such  an  elucida- 
tion; for  the  great  writers  on  the  social  gospel  have  seen 
the  meaning  of  Jesus  so  clearly  that  many  of  them  have 
failed  to  realize  how  callous  the  majority  of  our  minds 
have  been  to  that  meaning.  It  is  said  that  some  of  La- 
place's "therefores"  represent  several  sheets  of  calcula- 
tion for  the  ordinary  mathematician;  and  much  that  was 
obvious  to  Rauschenbusch  needs  considerable  thought  from 
the  rest  of  us.  But  the  process  is  very  simple,  after  all, 
and  resembles  nothing  else  so  much  as  picking  out  the  large 
letters  on  a  full  map  whose  small  lettering  tends  to  ob- 
scure the  principal  words. 

In  a  work  of  this  kind,  however,  it  is  always  difficult 
to  eliminate  the  personal  equation,  and  the  writer,  when 
lecturing  on  the  substance  of  this  book,  has  been  told 
that  he  has  allowed  his  personal  prepossessions  to  color 
his  understanding  of  the  Gospel.  But  his  personal  pre- 
possessions and  early  training  belong  to  the  intense  in- 
dividualism of  a  section  of  New  England  far  remote  from 
any  vital  interest  in  the  burning  social  questions  of  the 
day;  and  although  some  of  the  book  has  been  written 
practically  within  the  sound  of  the  industrial  conflict, 
there  has  been  a  sincere  endeavor  to  hear  only  the  voice 


viii  PREFACE 

of  Jesus  Christ,  under  the  belief  that  His  voice  is  clear 
in  Matthew  V,  VI,  and  VII. 

To  any  who  will  indicate  to  him  the  actual  points  in 
which  he  has  misinterpreted  the  meaning  of  these  chap- 
ters, the  writer,  in  spite  of  his  inevitable  chagrin,  will  be 
profoundly  grateful. 

I  desire,  here,  to  express  my  thanks  to  Miss  Marie  von 
Schrenk  for  invaluable  assistance  in  reading  the  manu- 
script, criticizing  it  helpfully,  and  rounding  it  into  pre- 
sentable form. 

All  detailed  interpretations  have  been  made  solely  with 
reference  to  the  most  approved  Greek  texts. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I     INTRODUCTORY        3 

II     THE    NATURE    OF    BLESSEDNESS.       (Matt. 

V:  3-12) 13 

III  THE   APPROACH   TO   THE   CROWD.      (Matt. 

V:  13-20) 31 

IV  THE    LAW    OF    THE    HEAVENLY    REALM. 

(Matt.  V:  21-37) 47 

V     THE  DOCTRINE  REJECTED  OF  MEN.     (Matt. 

V:  38-48)    .        .        .        .        .        .        .67 

VI     THE    REWARD    IN    HEAVEN.       (Matt.    VI: 

1-18) 85 

VII     THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  GOSPEL.     (Matt.  VI: 

19-23) 99 

VIII     GOD  AND  MAMMON.     (Matt.  VI :  24)   .        .      115 
IX     THE  PRACTICAL  RESULT  OF  THE  SERVICE 

OF  GOD.     (Matt.  VI:  25-34)    .        .        .137 
X     THE  CHRISTIAN  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  HUMAN 

IMPERFECTION.     (Matt.  VII:  1-6)   .        .      159 
XI     THE  NATURE  OF  CITIZENSHIP  IN  THE  HEAV- 
ENLY REALM.     (Matt.  VII :  7-23)   .        .     177 
XII     THE  SUPREMACY  OF  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL. 

(Matt.  VII:  24-29) 191 


INTRODUCTORY 


AND  SEEING  THE  MULTITUDES,  HE  WENT  UP  INTO  THE 
MOUNTAIN:  AND  WHEN  HE  WAS  SEATED,  HIS  DISCIPLES 
CAME  TO  HIM:  AND  HE  OPENED  HIS  MOUTH  AND  TAUGHT 
THEM. 

(Matthew  V:    1-2.) 


THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL  ; 

CHAPTER  I 

INTEODUCTOEY 

WHEN  a  Christian  minister  inclines  to  preach 
upon  special  subjects  like  politics,  psychother- 
apy, child  labor,  or  social  justice  a  considerable 
and  earnest  element  in  his  congregation  will  be  certain 
to  find  fault  with  such  preaching.  Many  a  good  mother 
in  Israel,  speaking  of  her  young  pastor,  says:  "We  like 

Mr.  but  I  do  wish  that  he  would  stick  to  the  plain, 

simple  Gospel." 

The  present  volume  is  an  earnest  endeavor  to  go  to 
the  heart  of  the  Simple  Gospel.  It  proposes  to  search 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  for  its  essential  truths,  and 
it  intends  to  set  forth  only  such  principles  as  are  neces- 
sarily inferred  from  that  discourse.  It  seeks  to  interpret 
literally  what  the  New  Testament  says  is  the  teaching  of 
Jesus. 

This  literalism,  however,  does  not  imply  any  antipathy 
to  advanced  scholarship  nor  any  doubt  that  the  most  ap- 
proved modern  processes  for  obtaining  truth  are  essential 
to  the  best  quality  of  religion.  It  merely  sets  itself  de- 
liberately against  a  certain  tendency,  ,hard  to  avoid  in 
modern  Christian  thought  when  the  anchor  of  authorita- 
tive, ecclesiastical  interpretation  is  cut  loose, — the  ten- 
dency to  blunt  the  edge  of  sharp  words  and  to  make  the 
doctrine  which  is  meant  for  all  time  apply  solely  to  the 


4  INTRODUCTORY 

peculiar  conditions  of  the  Jewish  nation  at  the  moment 
when  Jesus  was  preaching.  It  is  the  expression  of  the 
conviction  that  in  all  the  large  places  of  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount,  the  Master  is  saying  precisely  what  He  means 
and  meaning  exactly  what  He  says. 

Nevertheless  it  can  hardly  be  expected  that  the  out- 
come of  this  attitude  will  be  pleasing  to  the  dear,  earnest 
people  who  express  the  greatest  yearning  to  hear  the  simple 
gospel.  For  these  do  not,  as  a  rule,  belong  to  the  revolu- 
tionary elements  of  society  while  the  sermon  hurls  uncom- 
promising defiance  at  the  habits  of  life  and  thought  of 
the  (so  considered)  respectable  elements.  The  sharp  con- 
trast between  the  world  and  those  redeemed  from  the 
world  which  is  one  of  the  main  themes  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel,  is,  though  expressed  in  different  terms,  essential 
to  the  understanding  of  the  First:  and,  until  that  con- 
trast is  done  away — until  the  first  petition  of  the  great 
prayer  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  "Thy  Kingdom  come 
...  on  earth  as  it  is  in  Heaven,"  is  fully  answered,  the 
great  discourse  cries  out  for  radical  revolution. 

Its  very  beginning  is  a  series  of  apparently  paradoxical 
utterances  which  maintain  that  conditions  to  be  delivered 
from  which  is  the  main  object  of  the  average  Christian's 
life  and  prayer,  are  the  essence  of  blessedness.  It  makes 
fundamental  an  all-embracing  love  and  an  unlimited  for- 
giveness to  which  the  average  Christian  does  not,  as  a 
rule,  aspire.  It  demands  sacrifices  of  substance  and  of 
feeling  which  the  average  Christian  refuses  to  offer:  and 
it  puts  at  the  heart  and  center  of  all  effort  the  advance 
of  that  Kingdom  which  is  only  vaguely  and  dully  present 
in  the  average  Christian's  consciousness  even  when  he  is 
saying  the  Lord's  Prayer. 

That  is  to  say,  the  ordinary,  professing  Christian  be- 
liever lacks  FAITH.  He  does  not  have  confidence  in 


INTRODUCTORY  5 

some  of  the  most  important  principles  of  his  Master's  life 
and  teaching.  Usually  he  is  frank  enough  to  confess  that 
he  does  not  believe  in  the  practicability  of  a  considerable 
portion  of  this  teaching. 

It  is  hardly  to  be  wondered  at,  then,  that  after  nearly 
two  millenniums  of  teaching  what  she  has  almost  never 
practiced,  the  Church  finds  outside  her  doors  many  whose 
souls  are  more  akin  to  Gospel  principles  than,  perhaps, 
are  those  of  the  majority  of  her  own  members.  For  there 
are  many,  to-day,  who  have  a  passionate  faith  in  brotherly 
love,  who  are  wholly  willing  to  sacrifice  their  individual 
advantage  to  the  common  good,  but  who  find  the  atmos- 
phere of  the  Church  stifling.  They  feel  that  worldly  dis- 
tinctions hold  largely  in  the  Church — that  the  rich  and 
powerful  are  likely  to  receive,  there,  the  highest  offices 
and  the  controlling  influence.  They  ask  what  they  in- 
tend to  be  embarrassing  questions  concerning  camels  and 
needles'  eyes.  The  more  radical  hold  to  a  very  definite 
interpretation  of  Church  history  to  the  effect  that  the 
world's  economic  masters  have  always  consciously  made 
use  of  the  Church  to  influence  workers  to  be  content  with 
their  unhappiest  conditions  and  to  exalt  the  powers  which 
maintain  those  conditions. 

The  importance  of  this  indifference  and  opposition  can 
be,  only  too  easily,  underestimated  by  the  Church,  al- 
though the  Founder  of  the  Church  has  said  that  in  as 
much  as  we  do  anything  or  leave  anything  undone  to  the 
least  of  these,  His  brethren,  we  do  it  or  leave  it  undone 
to  Him;  and  although,  in  the  same  spirit,  her  first  great- 
missionary  has  asked: — "Who  is  offended  (scandalized) 
and  I  burn  not  ?" — utterances  which  prove  not  only  that 
original  Christianity  was  pervaded  by  a  thoroughgoing 
democratic  idealism  but  also  that  original  Christianity 
squared  itself  by  the  law  of  the  development  of  social 


6  INTRODUCTORY 

progress.  For  St.  Paul,  to  be  sure,  reared  as  he  was  in 
the  higher  social  strata,  it  was  of  the  nature  of  the  mirac- 
ulous that  the  faith  was  to  live  in  spite  of  the  fact  that, 
in  his  day,  "not  many  wise,  mighty,  or  noble  had  been 
called"  but  for  us  it  is  the  recognized  rule  of  history  that, 
in  order  to  live  and  grow,  ideas  must  be  rooted  in  the 
popular  consciousness.  The  Church  lived  because  it  took 
firm  root  in  the  commonest  of  the  common  people  of  the 
decaying  Roman  Empire:  and  while  Erasmus  accom- 
plished very  little  by  reaching  the  foremost  scholars  of  his 
time,  Luther  secured  a  world  revolution  through  his  in- 
fluence on  the  masses.  The  only  hope  of  the  Church  is 
in  the  hearts  of  the  people. 

But  religion  is  as  necessary  to  the  people  as  they  are 
to  religion.  This  would  be  true  even  if  the  wildest  ex- 
aggerations of  the  Church's  social  shortcomings  were  sci- 
entifically accurate.  The  agitator  who  is  most  rabid  on 
the  subject  of  the  Church's  wrongs  to  the  working  man 
has  no  reason  for  his  vehemence  along  that  line  unless  the 
Church  has  been  a  great  force:  and,  this  being  the  case, 
it  might  not  be  a  bad  idea  to  see  if  some  use  of  that  force 
could  not  be  made  to  advance  the  social  justice  which 
is  close  to  the  heart  of  every  spiritually  enlightened  man 
to-day.  A  wrong  use  of  the  Church  no  more  proves  that 
the  Church  itself  is  wrong  than  a  wrong  use  of  the  pro- 
duction of  wealth  proves  that  the  production  of  wealth 
is  wrong.  Religion  is  so  strong  in  human  nature  that  it 
is  not  unusual  for  it  to  overcome  the  strongest  economic 
pressure  and  men  without  number  are  willing  to  endure 
poverty  and  starvation  in  its  behalf.  But  this  unlimited 
power  of  suppression  is  neither  the  most  striking  nor  the 
most  important  fact  in  regard  to  religion :  far  more  worthy 
of  note  is  its  infinite  power  of  expression.  The  faultless 
art  of  Greece  is  religious  art  and  even  attendance  at  the 


INTRODUCTORY  Y 

theater  in  that  ancient  home  of  beauty  was  a  religious 
observance.  The  supreme  poems  of  human  literature,  like 
the  book  of  Job,  are  religious  poems ;  the  finest  paintings, 
like  the  Sistine  Madonna,  are  religious  paintings ;  the  most 
exalted  music,  like  Handel's  Messiah,  is  religious  music; 
the  most  immortal  literature  of  any  race  is  in  its  sacred 
books ;  and  the  most  sublime  architecture  is  in  the  temples 
and  cathedrals.  What,  then,  is  more  natural  than  to 
suppose  that  an  enduring  social  democracy  will  have  a 
religious  basis? 

That  such  is  to  be  the  case  is  the  simplest  point  of 
the  Simple  Gospel.  It  is  the  dominant  teaching  of  Jesus 
Christ.  His  heart  and  mind  and  soul  were  full  of  the 
plans  and  principles  of  an  ideal  community;  His  words 
are,  in  a  large  measure,  an  account  of  the  laws  and  cus- 
toms of  that  community;  His  parables,  usually  with  defi- 
nite mention  of  their  purpose,  tell  what  that  community 
is  like.  Indeed  there  would  be  little  left  if  we  removed 
from  His  recorded  sayings  those  that  make  specific  refer- 
ence to  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven. 

That  Kingdom  is  the  theme  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount.  The  very  first  sentence  of  the  sermon  asserts 
that  even  poverty  is  blessedness  to  those  who  possess  that 
State ;  and  the  last  sentence  maintains  that  the  only  wise 
way  to  rear  the  structure  of  life  is  to  build  upon  the  rock 
of  the  laws  and  principles  of  that  State.  Nothing  less 
than  these  principles,  as  given  in  the  great  sermon  and 
in  kindred  sayings,  ought  to  be  allowed  to  satisfy  the 
yearning  idealism  of  those  superior  souls  in  our  time 
who  cannot  find  comfortable  breathing  space  in  existing 
social  conditions.  The  struggle  to  improve  the  general 
standards  of  living  must  not  let  up  for  a  moment  until 
it  has  won  the  level  of  those  standards  which  Jesus  Christ 
has  set  for  the  Kingdom.  Revolutions  have  always  either 


8  INTRODUCTORY 

failed  utterly  or  been  very  disappointing  because  they  have 
set  their  standards  too  low  and  God  can  be  satisfied  only 
with  the  highest.  The  really  successful  revolution  must 
be  far  more  radical  than  any  that  has  yet  taken  place: 
it  must  make  this  world  give  place  to  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven. 

Religion  is  the  only  force  strong  enough  to  accomplish 
this  result.  For  it  will  never  come  to  pass  without  the 
aid  of  many  unshakable  human  characters ;  and  characters 
are  determined  by  religion.  This  fact  is  either  not  ac- 
cepted or  lost  sight  of  by,  perhaps,  the  majority  of  the 
more  virile  minds  of  the  day;  and  yet  the  evidence  for 
it  is  abundant.  We  do  not  depend  upon  the  testimony 
of  missionaries  alone  for  our  knowledge  that  men  reared 
in  Christian  lands  and  accustomed  to  the  practice  of  at 
least  a  rudimentary  Christian  morality  have  a  tendency, 
in  Heathen  lands,  after  long  residence  there,  to  decline 
toward  Heathen  morality.  Very  few,  moreover,  of  the 
men  of  good  morals  without  religious  interest,  whose  ex- 
istence all  must  recognize,  do  not  derive  their  good  in- 
stincts from  religious  inheritance.  The  non-religious, 
good  man  has,  almost  invariably,  religious  progenitors. 
We  may  be — indeed  every  good  man  must  be  dismayed 
at  social  conditions  in  Christian  lands:  but  they  are,  after 
all,  far  better  than  in  un-Christian  lands.  The  most  anti- 
Christian,  social  agitator  is  not  likely  to  extol  the  indus- 
trial conditions  of  old  Japan  or  China.  He  must  be  hope- 
lessly prejudiced  who  cannot  see  that  there  is  some  differ- 
ence to  the  advantage  of  those  lands  where  Christianity 
is  nominally  accepted ;  and  the  religious  difference,  which 
is  the  greatest  difference,  is  something  more  than  a  coinci- 
dence. Religion  unquestionably  makes  character  and  char- 
acter at  this  moment  is  the  supreme  need  of  social  progress. 

For  the  modern  movement  toward  social  betterment  has 


INTRODUCTORY  9 

a  vast  amount  of  more  or  less  worthless  excess  baggage  in 
those  characterless  persons  who  intellectually  have  caught 
the  vision  of  a  more  socially  just  polity,  but  who  are  not 
willing  to  do  anything  about  it.  "These  better  conditions 
are  coming,"  they  say,  "but  there  is  no  need  to  be  im- 
patient: the  year  1922  is  not  the  year  1972,  and  you  must 
not  expect  the  later  developments  at  the  earlier  time." 
But  these  expected  developments  cannot  arise  out  of  noth- 
ing, and  all  progress  is  accomplished  not  necessarily  by 
brutal  fighting  but  never  without  hard,  vigorous  striving. 
The  price  of  the  improved  conditions  must  be  paid  in 
strain  and  toil  and  utter  sacrifice;  and  those  slackers, 
occupying  every  position  from  the  university  professor's 
chair  to  the  bookkeeper's  stool,  who  wish  the  movement 
well  but  offer  it  no  strong  support  are  lukewarm  Lao- 
diceans,  nauseous  beyond  expression. 

But  even  those  who  are  enthusiastic  do  not  always  con- 
tinue trustworthy,  and  there  never  was  a  time  when  it 
was  more  commonly  believed  that  every  man  has  his  price. 
There  is  no  legislature  in  this  country  to  which  great 
private  interests  do  not  send  men  or  women  to  corrupt 
the  professed  servants  of  the  public.  If  the  legislator  or 
office-holder  whose  corrupted  influence  is  desired  wishes 
money,  it  is  furnished;  if  his  wife  craves  social  advance- 
ment, she  is  advanced;  if  he  can  be  reached  through  ad- 
ministering to  his  vices  and  lusts,  the  evils  will  be  offered 
with  subtle  irresistibility.  The  whole  process,  by  the  way, 
is  very  much  facilitated  if  the  person  to  be  corrupted  does 
all  his  thinking  down  on  a  low,  materialistic,  crudely 
economic  plane:  because  one  who  conceives  of  economic 
wants  as  the  ultimate  wants  is  the  more  easily  tempted 
by  economic  satisfactions. 

Against  these  very  real  social  dangers  there  is  no  surer 
prophylactic  than  a  sane,  vigorous,  religious  fervor.  That, 


10  INTRODUCTORY 

if  allowed  to  become  effective,  will  develop  men  and 
women  who  are  without  price;  and  it  will  give  scope 
for  a  social  reconstruction  on  a  plane  with  the  great  artis- 
tic, literary  and  musical  expressions  of  the  spiritual  genius 
of  man.  The  time  was  never  so  ripe  before  as  it  is  to-day 
for  taking  seriously  the  Simple  Gospel. 

It  is  strange  that  it  has  not  been  taken  seriously  since 
the  unfortunate  experiment  of  the  unsophisticated  first 
converts  to  Christianity.  With  all  the  unbridled  literal- 
ism in  unessentials  to  which  the  majority  of  professing 
Christians  have  always  been  prone,  it  is  amazing  that  the 
words  of  Jesus  in  those  matters  which  were  closest  to 
His  heart  and  which  He  has  put  into  terms  of  crystal 
clarity  should  be  treated  so  cavalierly  by  almost  all  nomi- 
nal believers.  With  all  the  effort  of  superb  literary  and 
philosophical  genius  that  has  been  exerted  in  imagining 
ideal  commonwealths,  it  is  inconceivable  why  human 
hearts  do  not  burn  at  the  very  mention  of  the  perfectly 
ideal  and  absolutely  practicable  Commonwealth  of  God. 

Nominal  Christian  believers,  as  a  rule,  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted, do  not  believe  that  it  is  practicable  in  this  world; 
but  non-Christian  social  enthusiasts  believe  not  only  that 
the  more  difficult  parts  of  the  program  for  that  Common- 
wealth can  be  put  into  actual  operation  but  also  that  they 
must  and  shall  be  tried. 

Therefore  this  book  pleads  that  those  whose  souls  are 
inspired  with  an  enthusiasm  for  something  very  like  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  come  into  the  fold  of  Christ;  and  that 
those,  professedly  in  the  fold,  who  do  not  burn  with  a 
consuming  desire  that  the  Kingdom  be  established  on  earth 
as  it  is  in  Heaven  pray  that  the  enlightening  Spirit,  who 
is  ever  sending  messengers  with  the  glad  tidings  that  the 
Kingdom  is  at  hand,  turn  their  disobedient  hearts  to  the 
wisdom  of  the  just. 


THE  NATURE  OF  BLESSEDNESS 


BLESSED  ARE  THE  POOR— IN  SPIRIT— FOR  THEIRS  IS  THE 
KINGDOM  OF  HEAVEN. 

BLESSED  ARE  THEY  WHO  MOURN  FOR  THEY  SHALL  BE 
COMFORTED. 

BLESSED  ARE  THE  MEEK  FOR  THEY  SHALL  INHERIT 
THE  EARTH. 

BLESSED  ARE  THEY  WHO  HUNGER  AND  THIRST  AFTER 
RIGHTEOUSNESS  FOR  THEY  SHALL  BE  FILLED. 

BLESSED  ARE  THE  MERCIFUL  FOR  THEY  SHALL  OBTAIN 
MERCY. 

BLESSED  ARE  THE  PURE  IN  HEART  FOR  THEY  SHALL 
SEE  GOD. 

BLESSED  ARE  THE  PEACEMAKERS  FOR  THEY  SHALL  BE 
CALLED  THE  CHILDREN  OF  GOD. 

BLESSED  ARE  THEY  WHO  ARE  PERSECUTED  FOR  RIGHT- 
EOUSNESS' SAKE  FOR  THEIRS  IS  THE  KINGDOM  OF 
HEAVEN. 

BLESSED  ARE  YOU,  WHEN  MEN  SHALL  REVILE  YOU, 
AND  PERSECUTE  YOU,  AND  SAY  ALL  MANNER  OF  EVIL 
AGAINST  YOU  FALSELY,  FOR  MY  SAKE. 

REJOICE,  AND  EXULT  BECAUSE  YOUR  REWARD  IN 
HEAVEN  IS  GREAT;  FOR  THEY  PERSECUTED  THE 
PROPHETS  WHO  WERE  BEFORE  YOU  IN  THE  SAME  WAY. 

(Matthew  V:  3-12.) 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   NATURE  OF   BLESSEDNESS 

ONE  could  in  no  way  get  a  better  comprehension 
of  the  feeling  toward  conventional  religion  main- 
tained by  the  more  rebellious  elements  of  society 
than  by  listening  to  some  of  their  songs.     He  can  never 
forget  it  who  has  once  heard  a  good  voice  ring  out,  with 
all  the  venom  of  intense  class  hatred,  this  doggerel : — 

"Work  all  day ; 
Live  on  hay ; 
You'll  get  pie,  in  the  sky,  by  and  by." 

To  the  aroused  portion  of  the  proletariat,  for  the  most 
part,  these  words  express  the  whole  tenor  of  the  Christian 
religion;  and  while  this  impression  is,  no  doubt,  exagger- 
ated, it  is  not  made  up  out  of  whole  cloth.  There  has 
frequently  been,  and  there  is  to-day,  considerable  preach- 
ing, in  the  name  of  Christianity,  with  a  view  to  making 
men  content  under  circumstances  which  shriek  to  Heaven. 
There  is  more  than  sufficient  reason  for  supposing  that 
some  industrial  Y.M.C.A.  establishments  receive  large 
contributions  from  the  dominating  local  corporations  which 
expect  that  these  establishments  will  help  to  insure  in- 
dustrial contentment  on  the  part  of  their  employees.  Hu- 
man slavery  and  industrial  tyranny  have  been  upheld  in 
many  Christian  pulpits.  There  is  a  strain,  even  in  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  which  might  be  tortured  into  sup- 
port of  this  point  of  view. 

13 


14  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

Therefore  it  is  very  difficult  to  open  a  discussion  of  the 
great  Sermon  without  running  afoul  of  this  rebellious 
attitude.  Those  to  whom  the  discourse  should  mean  most 
are  likely  to  be  disaffected  at  its  opening  words.  For  the 
Beatitudes  with  which  the  sermon  begins  are  full  of  a 
spirit  of  what  might  be  called  other-worldliness,  while  the 
cleanest  social  consciousness  to-day  is  and  ought  to  be 
very  much  concerned  with  conditions  in  this  world. 

Nevertheless  a  beginning  has  to  be  made  and  the  assur- 
ance is  here  given  that,  however  far  afield  from  the  cir- 
cumstances of  this  present  world  the  discussion  may  seem 
to  go,  it  goes  thus  far  afield  primarily  with  a  view  to 
fetching  to  this  world  that  which  it  most  sorely  lacks. 
For  that  is  the  whole  secret  of  the  dominant  thought  of 
Jesus.  He  dwelt  always  in  the  consciousness  of  a  spiritual 
order  so  infinitely  superior  to  the  way  of  the  world  that 
He  frequently  called  it  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven — the 
Kingdom  above  the  world:  and  this  is  the  term  which  is 
used  throughout  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  for  the  more 
Common  New  Testament  expression  Kingdom  of  God. 

In  dwelling  upon  that  Kingdom  it  is  not  necessary  to 
minimize  the  importance  of  the  future  life  and  the  deepest 
comforts  in  the  saddest  experiences  that  we  are  called 
upon  to  endure.  But  it  is  very  necessary  to  remember 
that  the  main  emphasis  of  Jesus  was  upon  the  need  of 
bringing  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  down  to  earth.  That 
is  the  first  object  for  which  He  teaches  us  to  pray  in  His 
model  prayer,  and  that  is  the  main  purpose  for  which 
He  teaches  us  to  live  in  all  His  sayings.  The  great 
prophets  of  His  race — His  spiritual  forbears — were  all  con- 
cerned primarily  with  a  social  order  on  this  earth  in  which 
the  righteousness  of  the  Heavenly  King  should  prevail; 
and  He  speaks  even  more  earnestly  to  the  same  effect. 
New  Testament  righteousness  begins  with  a  call  to  re- 


pentance  in  preparation  for  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  which 
is  close  at  hand. 

So  if  Jesus  had  taken  a  text  for  His  great  Sermon, 
none  would  have  served  better  than  these  constantly  reit- 
erated words  of  John  the  Baptist: — "Kepent  ye,  for  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  at  hand."  Essentially  revolution- 
ary words,  because  repentance  means  a  complete  change 
of  heart:  and  such  a  change  throughout  humanity  is  nec- 
essary before  the  justice  of  God's  Kingdom  can  be  estab- 
lished among  us.  The  world  must  become  radically  dif- 
ferent in  order  to  make  the  Simple  Gospel  effective. 

Now  while  the  socially  discontented,  modern  minds  may 
not  sympathize  thoroughly  with  the  spirit  of  the  Beati- 
tudes, they  at  least  agree  with  these  opening  words  of  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  in  their  underlying  feeling  that  the 
accepted  ways  of  the  world  are  wrong.  Whatever  differ- 
ence there  may  be  between  the  Gospel  and  the  most  ad- 
vanced, modern,  social  ideal  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  Beati- 
tudes are  more  revolutionary  than  the  revolutionists. 

Most  revolutionary  of  them  all  is  the  first: — "Blessed 
are  the  poor — in  spirit — for  theirs  is  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven." 

The  form  in  which  it  is  here  given  is  better  than  the 
mere  "Blessed  are  ye  poor"  of  St.  Luke's  Gospel;  and 
there  is  no  call  to  reject  it  in  favor  of  the  Lukan  text. 
The  author  of  the  Third  Gospel,  as  we  know  from  his 
treatment  of  the  Second,  tended  to  eliminate  qualifying 
phrases,  and  it  is  more  likely  that  he  omitted  the  words 
"in  spirit"  here  than  that  an  early  Christian  disciple, 
in  the  First  Gospel,  improved  upon  the  Master's  thought. 
Mr.  Bernard  Shaw  does  not  rise  above  Ibsen — he  does 
not  even  comprehend  some  essentials  in  Ibsen.  No  Fran- 
ciscan ever  improved  upon  St.  Francis  and  no  Platonist 
ever  surpassed  Plato.  We  may  safely  feel,  therefore,  that 


16  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

no  early  Christian,  in  an  important  matter,  improved  upon 
the  words  of  Christ. 

The  words  "in  spirit,"  then,  were  in  all  probability  put 
into  the  first  Beatitude  by  Jesus  Himself.  For  blessed- 
ness does  not  inhere  in  the  mere  fact  of  being  poor.  The 
poor  man  who  is  eating  his  heart  out  because  he  is  not 
rich  is,  obviously,  not  blessed:  he  is  not  poor  in  spirit. 
Moreover  if  there  are  any  rich  who  are  gladly  willing  to 
sacrifice  their  last  cent  for  the  Kingdom  (the  words  of 
Jesus  do  not  encourage  the  belief  that  there  are  many), 
these  are  poor  in  spirit. 

For  the  poor  in  spirit  are  those  rare,  chosen  few  to 
whom  material  gain  is  an  unimportant  consideration. 
They  have  risen  above  the  power  of  wealth  to  swerve  them 
from  their  ideal  course.  Just  as  certain  scientists  become 
so  absorbed  in  the  discovery  of  new  truth  that  sometimes 
they  have  to  be  dragged  to  their  meals  and  forced  to  take 
their  necessary  sleep;  or  as  some  artists  so  lose  them- 
selves in  the  practice  of  their  art  that  they  are  willing 
to  go  half  fed  and  ill  clad;  so  the  poor  in  spirit  consider 
nothing  else  important  in  comparison  with  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven.  They  have  the  blessedness  of  an  interest  so 
deep  and  so  consuming  that  no  hardship  and  no  depriva- 
tion can  take  away  their  satisfaction  in  that  interest. 

The  fact  that  Jesus  calls  such  devotion  blessedness  im- 
plies that  He  considers  the  Kingdom  well  worth  all  that 
can  be  sacrificed  for  it:  and  it  is  no  accident  that  the 
very  first  sentence  of  His  great  sermon  makes  the  King- 
dom of  Heaven  all  important.  For  if,  having  it,  the  poor 
are  blessed  then  this  Kingdom  is  the  supreme  value  in 
life.  To  give  it  such  value  is  the  all  controlling  purpose 
of  the  teaching  of  Christ ;  and  we  shall  never  understand 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  at  all  if  we  fail  to  see  that  this 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  which  is  the  first  spiritual  reality 


THE  NATUKE  OF  BLESSEDNESS        17 

mentioned  in  it  is  the  central  thought  of  the  discourse, 
determining  the  bearing  of  everything  contained  in  it. 
The  emphasis  here  given  to  this  truth  could  not  be 
stronger.  Possessing  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  even  the 
poor  are  blessed.  He  who  has  it  needs  nothing  more. 

But  besides  setting  forth  the  paramount  importance  of 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  the  first  Beatitude,  in  striking 
the  keynote  of  the  sermon,  brings  out  another  extremely 
vital  point,  which  is  the  inestimable  worth  of  human  be- 
ings as  such  without  reference  to  their  social  standing, 
reputation,  or  possessions.  The  opening  clause  exalts  the 
poor,  calling  them  blessed.  But  the  poor,  having  nothing 
outside  of  themselves,  must  owe  their  exaltation  to  their 
intrinsic  value :  and  it  is  in  keeping  with  the  entire  teach- 
ing of  Jesus  that  the  opening  sentence  of  His  supreme 
discourse  should  bring  out  the  infinite  worth  of  the  human 
soul  in  itself  as  well  as  the  exclusive  claims  of  the  King- 
dom of  Heaven.  The  Kingdom  is  all  important  because 
it  is  made  up  of  human  souls :  human  souls  are  priceless 
because  they  are  essential  parts  of  the  Kingdom. 

This  truth  marks  that  sharp  distinction  between  the 
world  and  the  redeemed  which  is  fundamental  in  the 
Gospel  according  to  St.  John.  The  world  does  not  esteem 
the  human  being  above  material  things:  the  Kingdom  of 
God  gives  to  the  human  soul  the  highest  of  all  values. 
In  the  courts,  in  the  legislative  halls,  in  Church  councils, 
material  well-being  has  more  weight  than  human  worth: 
in  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  the  really  poor  are  actually 
blessed. 

No  more  characteristic  illustration  of  this  truth  can  be 
given  than  any  of  the  anti-social  decisions  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States.  To  mention  three  typical 
cases,  there  are  the  Dred  Scott  decision  in  favor  of  chattel 
slavery,  the  decision  against  the  Income  Tax,  and  the  one 


18  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

against  the  Federal  Child  Labor  Law.  Before  that  court 
the  welfare  of  the  ordinary  human  being  is  almost  certain 
to  be  found  secondary  to  that  of  vested,  financial  interests ; 
and  the  reason  is  simpler  than  we  generally  assume.  It 
is  not  merely,  as  the  average  person  who  tries  to  explain 
this  fact  believes,  because  the  court  is  composed  of  old 
men,  hopelessly  bound  to  precedent.  That  is,  of  course, 
approximately  true  but  the  same  holds  of  most  of  the  best 
legal  opinion.  The  Supreme  Court  is  very  learned  and 
competent  and  its  decisions  are  the  best  that  can  be  given 
in  America,  From  the  point  of  view  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  the  difficulty  is  not  with  the  court  which  inter- 
prets the  law  as  it  is :  the  difficulty  is  with  the  law  itself. 
The  most  characteristic  modern  law  has  as  a  basic  prin- 
ciple the  supremacy  of  property  over  manhood. 

This  principle,  by  the  way,  is  fundamental  in  all  the 
conservative  political  parties  of  Anglo-Saxon  nations.  On 
the  other  hand  its  absence  from  the  polity  of  the  Kingdom, 
as  set  forth  in  the  New  Testament,  justifies  the  claim  for 
the  Christian  Gospel  that  it  is  thoroughly  democratic. 
That  Gospel  is  radically  opposed  to  all  law  which  sets 
things  above  persons  and  consequently  to  all  political  con- 
servatism. The  flag  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  red, 
symbolizing  the  common  blood  of  human  brotherhood — 
the  saving  Blood,  if  you  will,  of  our  socially  outcast  Elder 
Brother:  and  human  law  at  its  best  has  no  more  scathing 
critic  than  the  great  Apostle  of  the  Faith  who  said: — 
"Because  ye  are  sons  God  has  sent  forth  the  spirit  of 
His  Son  into  your  hearts,  crying  Abba,  Father." 

This  all  means  that  the  great  distinction  between  the 
world  and  the  Kingdom  lies  in  the  exaltation,  by  the 
Kingdom,  of  spiritual  values.  Not  that  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  does  not  look  toward  a  just  arrangement  of 
material  conditions  as  essential:  but  such  an  arrangement 


THE  NATURE  OF  BLESSEDNESS        19 

will  necessarily  take  place  when  spiritual  forces  reign. 
The  Gospel  conceives  of  all  socially  just,  material  organi- 
zation as  deriving  its  very  life  from  spiritual  sources. 

It  is  in  this  supremacy  of  the  spiritual  that  the  nature 
of  blessedness  lies.  Because  of  that  supremacy  all  last- 
ing satisfaction  comes  in  the  spiritual  realm;  and  there  is 
no  deprivation  in  this  world  which  can  destroy  this  satis- 
faction. 

Thus  the  second  Beatitude,  to  him  who  believes  it, 
brings  a  joy  beyond  any  conceivable  material  satisfaction. 
— "Blessed  are  they  who  mourn  for  they  shall  be  com- 
forted." 

Whatever  material  satisfaction  there  may  be  in  life 
is,  at  its  best,  brief  and  fleeting.  The  richest  life,  materi- 
ally, is  soon  over:  but  no  good  life  disappears  without 
leaving  those  who  mourn.  They  feel  the  spiritual  values 
in  him  for  whom  they  mourn:  and  Jesus  was  confident 
that  the  spiritual  values  are  the  abiding  values  in  life. 
'Blessed  are  they  that  mourn  for  their  hearts  yearn  for 
the  assured,  permanent  realities.' 

This  confidence  in  the  permanence  of  spiritual  realities 
is  followed,  in  the  third  Beatitude,  by  an  assertion  of  their 
power.  Spiritual  strength  is  the  ultimate  form  of  strength. 
— "Blessed  are  the  meek  for  they  shall  inherit  the 
earth." 

Probably  there  is  nothing  more  difficult  than  this  for 
the  average  man  to  believe.  The  Christian  Church,  as  a 
whole,  has  never  taken  the  assertion  seriously  and  eccle- 
siastical authority  is  not  notable,  primarily,  for  its  meek- 
ness. 

In  this  matter,  however,  as  in  so  many  others,  the 
Church  but  reflects  the  attitude  of  the  world:  and  in  the 
modern  world  nothing  is  so  discounted  as  meekness.  It 
is  no  accident  that  the  philosophy  of  the  self-assertive 


20  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

Superman  is  the  peculiar  philosophy  of  our  time;  and 
Nietzsche's  doctrine  is  the  natural  outcome  of  a  civiliza- 
tion which,  whatever  its  ideals  may  be,  conducts  its  activ- 
ities largely  on  the  principle  that  might  makes  right.  The 
ambitions  of  the  house  of  Hohenzollern  were  only  one 
phase  of  the  prevailing  mood;  and  the  typical  American 
trust  magnate  is  a  far  better  example  of  the  Nietzschean 
principle  than  is  any  European  prince.  Even  in  absolute 
monarchy  there  is  always  some  leaven  of  noblesse  oblige, 
but  in  the  typical  American  commercial  and  industrial 
mastery  there  is  no  redeeming  grace.  Lloyd's  "Wealth 
and  Commonwealth"  (Harpers,  1894)  is  an  old  book  now, 
but  no  one  has  yet  attempted  to  gainsay  its  copious  docu- 
mentary proof  that  in  the  early  development  of  the  Amer- 
ican business  trusts  the  property,  the  constitutional  rights, 
and  even  the  lives  of  those  who  stood  in  the  way  of  that 
development  were  ruthlessly  disregarded.  But  as  this 
matter  must  come  up  again  in  a  later  chapter,  we  need 
only  note  here  the  remoteness  of  meekness  from  power 
in  our  everyday  thought.  The  modern,  boastfully  exag- 
gerating business  advertisement  is  the  most  characteristic 
form  in  which  our  age  expresses  itself. 

Nevertheless  although  the  ultimate  triumph  of  meek- 
ness must,  from  our  lack  of  experience,  be  now  largely  a 
matter  of  faith  there  are  certain  reasons  for  believing 
that  the  third  Beatitude  is  true.  The  British  Empire, 
for  example,  is  probably  the  most  successful  large  scale 
government  that  the  world  has  known.  To  be  sure,  like 
all  great  empires  hitherto,  it  has  used  hideous,  brutal 
force  to  a  large  extent  in  building  itself  up:  but  there  is 
nothing  peculiar  to  the  British  Empire  in  that.  The 
peculiar  characteristic  in  British  imperial  rule — the  prin- 
ciple that  seems  to  distinguish  it  from  all  other  imperial 
government — is  what  may  be  called  governmental  meek- 


THE  NATUKE  OF  BLESSEDNESS        21 

ness:  the  real  strength  of  the  British  Empire  is  the  mar- 
velous way  in  which  the  central  authority  has  allowed 
such  broad  local  self-expression  without  exerting  too  irri- 
tating a  pressure  from  outside.  This  meekness  has  been, 
undoubtedly,  the  Empire's  greatest  strength  and  the  im- 
perial government  is  weakest  where  the  meekness  is  least 
in  evidence. 

On  the  other  hand  undue  self-assertion  is  weakness. 
Violence  is  always  lack  of  self-control,  but  self-control  is 
the  acme  of  power.  Violence  always  wrecks  the  cause 
of  the  revolutions  that  resort  to  it  no  matter  how  just 
the  revolutionary  principles  may  be.  It  is  forever  in- 
compatible with  intelligent  mastery. 

The  great  scholar  in  his  mastery  of  a  profound  subject 
is  always  meek :  he  does  not  assume  authority :  he  prefers 
to  give  a  modest  opinion  for  which  he  thinks  there  is  con- 
siderable evidence.  Even  the  great  business  men  who,  in 
these  days,  exert  compelling  influence  over  legislatures 
and  courts  are  inclined  to  be  soft-spoken,  quiet  and  calm. 
The  modern  gentleman  is  infinitely  stronger  because  of  his 
gentleness  than  was  his  forbear  who  drew  pistol  or  sword 
at  the  slightest  insult. 

But  if  this  be  true  there  is  a  suggestion  in  this  strength 
of  meekness  for  the  successful  accomplishment  of  those 
revolutionary  ideals  which  formerly  have  failed  because 
of  their  use  of  violence.  The  strike  can  be  and  more 
often  than  is  commonly  supposed  is  an  example  of  effec- 
tive meekness.  The  violence  of  strikes  is  always  exagger- 
ated by  the  local  press,  which  is  usually  controlled  by  the 
persons  against  whom  the  strike  is  directed;  and  the  fre- 
quent brutality  of  these  persons  is  not  dwelt  upon.  But 
in  view  of  the  fact  that  even  in  the  least  justifiable  strike, 
no  matter  how  condemnable  its  methods,  the  strikers  are 
always  on  the  side  of  higher  standards  of  living  while 


22  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

those  against  whom  they  strike  are  always  opposing  such 
standards,  we  can  see  that  the  strike  is  capable  of  be- 
coming the  supreme,  social  example  of  that  passive  re- 
sistance to  evil  which  is  the  essence  of  the  whole  life 
and  teaching  of  Jesus  Christ.  For  the  successful  strike 
cannot  depend  upon  violence  and  in  any  strike  the  essen- 
tial feature  is  the  failure  to  exert  force  rather  than  the 
use  of  it. 

In  another  very  real  sense,  moreover,  meekness  is  the 
absolute  prerequisite  to  any  successful  opposition  to  indus- 
trial oppression.  For  there  being  no  likelihood  what- 
ever, as  will  be  indicated  later,  that  industrial  masters 
will  right  social  wrongs  on  their  own  initiative,  the  log- 
ical means  of  righting  them  is  through  organized  labor. 
That  kind  of  organization  has  improved  greatly  the  aver- 
age standards  of  living  among  the  workers;  and  many  a 
man  who  owes  his  good  wages  and  his  good  conditions  of 
labor  to  the  organization  of  his  craft  refuses  to  give 
allegiance  to  his  craft  organization.  Such  a  man  becomes 
a  great  hindrance  to  labor  organization  because  of  his  lack 
of  meekness.  He  sets  his  own  individual  interests  above 
those  of  his  fellow  workers  and  by  blatantly  upholding 
against  the  common  good  his  personal  right  of  contract, 
he  lowers  the  standard  of  living  which  the  organization 
is  trying  to  elevate. 

The  so-called  freedom  of  the  individual,  by  the  way, 
in  this  matter  is  one  of  those  meaningless  notions,  like 
the  false  national  honor  which  commercial  interests  use 
through  the  Jingo  Press  to  promote  wars  that  are  profita- 
ble to  them.  In  a  large  majority  of  cases  under  modern 
conditions  the  laborer's  freedom  of  contract  amounts  to 
no  more  than  to  take  the  job  offered  at  the  wages  offered 
or  to  go  hungry.  Such  freedom  of  contract,  with  all  its 
opposition  to  meekness,  helps  no  one  and  has  as  its  natural 


THE  NATUKE  OF  BLESSEDNESS        23 

outcome  pure  destructiveness — or  as  the  Bible  terms  it 
"the  abomination  of  desolation." 

It  is  not  hard  to  see,  then,  that  the  heart  of  the  world's 
difficulties  is  the  widespread  self-assertion  which  is  in- 
compatible with  meekness.  The  national  self-glorification 
demanding  territory  and  recognition  to  which  its  only 
claim  is  its  brutal  power  of  enforcing  its  will,  the  business 
expansion  at  the  cost  of  others — that  commercial  avarice 
which  is  one  of  the  most  fruitful  causes  of  war,  and  the 
workman's  holding  out  for  his  individual  privileges 
against  the  common  good  are  all  scarlet  sins  against  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven.  But  those  who  are  meek  lose  them- 
selves in  the  common  good;  instead  of  standing  out  in 
self -exaltation  against  each  other  they  sacrifice  themselves 
in  cooperating  for  the  general  welfare;  and  in  this  co- 
operation lies  inevitably  certain  mastery.  The  meek  shall 
inherit  the  earth. 

This  line  of  thought  is  bound  up  with  that  of  a  later 
Beatitude  which  may  be  properly  considered  here — 
"Blessed  are  the  peacemakers  for  they  shall  be  called  the 
sons  of  God." 

The  surest  way  of  making  peace  in  an  industrial  civili- 
zation is  by  the  use  of  the  passive  resistance  just  men- 
tioned. If  the  world's  manual  workers,  in  any  crisis 
when  war  threatens,  combine  with  a  view  to  refusing  to 
turn  the  wheels  of  industry  until  the  nations  come  to  a 
sane  settlement  of  their  differences,  war  cannot  be  carried 
on:  and  no  Christian  person,  really  willing  to  lose  him- 
self for  Christ's  sake,  can  look  forward  with  anything  but 
eager  yearning  to  a  time  when  the  combined  host  of  the 
world's  toilers  shall  make  peace  by  refusing  to  lend  their 
efforts  to  the  prosecution  of  war. 

Nor  is  it  extravagant  to  hope  that  world  peace  may 
come  in  this  way.  National  jealousies  and  commercial 


24  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

ambitions  are,  if  unbridled,  absolutely  certain  ultimately 
to  plunge  those  who  uphold  them  into  war.  It  is  the  first 
principle  of  group  psychology  that  national  armament  is 
bound  to  produce  national  aggression;  and  the  primary 
incentive  to  national  armament  is  the  work  of  the  army 
and  navy  leagues  of  the  various  countries,  which  leagues 
throughout  the  world  are  controlled  by  the  corporations 
and  trusts  which  produce  the  munitions  of  war.  But  the 
men  who  do  the  hard  labor  of  the  world  have  every  interest 
to  prevent  war:  and  the  certain  prevention  of  it  is  in 
their  power.  God  wants  the  toilers  of  the  world  to  make 
peace  and  when  they  realize  their  sonship  to  Him  peace 
will  be  assured.  "Blessed  are  the  peacemakers  for  they 
shall  be  called  the  sons  of  God." 

But  to  those  who  work  for  a  great  cause  like  world 
peace  there  is  sure  to  come  a  certain  amount  of  persecu- 
tion. There  has  been  no  considerable  movement  in  his- 
tory toward  human  betterment  that  has  not  been  misrep- 
resented, slandered,  and  persecuted  by  the  respectable 
Scribes  and  Pharisees  of  the  time  in  which  that  movement 
arose.  The  Christian  Church  of  the  early  saints  and  mar- 
tyrs, for  example,  was  supposed  by  the  intelligent  citizens 
of  Rome  to  be  guilty  of  the  most  repulsive,  conceivable 
enormities,  even  to  the  sacrificing  and  eating  of  young  chil- 
dren: and  modern  intelligence  has  advanced  very  little 
in  appreciating  the  ideals  of  social  progress  as  maintained 
by  the  so-called  lower  classes.  After  allowing  for  propa- 
ganda, deliberate  misrepresentation,  and  pardonable  be- 
lief that  the  work  of  the  industrial  detective  (to  be  con- 
sidered later)  is  actual  violence  on  the  part  of  organized 
labor,  there  may  remain  some  violence  of  the  type  so 
eagerly  accepted  as  real  by  the  hysteria  of  social  con- 
servatism: industrial  conditions  have  been  and  are  such 


THE  NATURE  OF  BLESSEDNESS        25 

as  would  naturally  produce  violent  rebellion  on  the  part 
of  some  individual  sufferers  and  social  groups:  but  the 
general  feeling  that  all  social  unrest  or  the  typical  social 
unrest  is  cruel,  bloodthirsty  and  violent  is  of  a  piece  with 
the  Roman  misinterpretation  of  early  Christianity.  Years 
ago  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells,  in  "The  Future  in  America,"  made 
the  intelligent  portion  of  the  English-reading  public 
chuckle  at  the  average  American  understanding  of  the 
doctrines  of  social  revolt :  but  the  bourgeois  American  still 
cherishes  his  favorite  bugbears  of  a  socialism  which  teaches 
the  equal  division  of  wealth,  a  syndicalism  which  believ.es 
in  rapine  and  murder,  and  an  Anarchy  which  practices 
violence. 

This  merely  indicates  that  misrepresentation  and  slan- 
der are  inherent  in  the  group  psychology  of  the  human 
race.  But,  to  turn  at  once  to  the  closing  Beatitude,  Jesus 
says  that  to  be  persecuted  and  slandered  in  a  righteous 
cause  is  to  be  blessed.  "Blessed  are  they  that  have  been 
persecuted  for  righteousness'  sake  for  theirs  is  the  King- 
dom of  Heaven." 

Just  as  those  who  suffer  deprivation  are  blessed  because 
they  have  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  so  are  those  who  suffer 
persecution.  Human  nature  is  cast  in  a  heroic  mold,  and 
every  war  proves  that  men  are  glad  to  endure  the  hardest 
trials  in  what  they  consider  to  be  a  good  cause.  The 
pacificism  of  Jesus  is  in  keeping  with  this  spirit;  it 
is  not  a  weak,  effeminate  cringing;  it  realizes  that  all 
progress  is  a  hard,  exacting,  manhood-straining  effort. 
But  with  all  its  clear  consciousness  of  the  bitter  persecu- 
tion which  it  must  necessarily  encounter,  it  knows  that 
there  is  no  cause  comparable  to  the  advancement  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  and  that  there  is  no  satisfaction  com- 
parable to  that  of  giving  all  in  this  cause.  Any  one  who 


26  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

has  been,  willingly,  even  slightly  persecuted  in  a  good 
cause  knows  that  there  is  a  thrill  of  satisfaction  in  such 
persecution,  impossible  to  describe. 

This  is  connected  with  what  Jesus  means  by  the  reward 
in  Heaven  which  is  discussed  at  length  in  Chapter  VI. 
"Blessed  are  ye  when  men  shall  revile  you  and  persecute 
you  and  say  all  manner  of  evil  against  you  falsely  on 
account  of  Me:  rejoice  and  exult  for  great  is  your  re- 
ward in  Heaven." 

One  may  remain  on  the  earth  and  still  enjoy  a  con- 
suming satisfaction  in  things  above  and  beyond  the  earth. 
No  great  cause  has  ever  succeeded  without  men  of  such 
a  mold,  and  the  progress  of  social  justice  depends  upon 
those  for  whom  social  justice  is  the  all-consuming  passion 
of  their  lives.  Their  whole  satisfaction  will  lie  in  giving 
themselves  up  to  this  passion  and  in  this  satisfaction  is 
their  reward.  But  since  this  thought  is  to  be  developed 
more  fully  later  on,  we  need  not  go  into  detail  here. 

In  fact  the  Beatitudes,  for  the  most  part,  are  merely 
preludes  giving  themes  which  are  developed  later  in  the 
sermon :  and  this  is  peculiarly  the  case  with  the  Beatitudes 
that  have  BO  far  been  left  unmentioned. 

For  instance  there  is  the  "Blessed  are  they  who  hunger 
and  thirst  after  righteousness  for  they  shall  be  filled." 
The  prevailing  note  of  the  entire  sermon  is  struck  here. 
The  abiding  satisfaction  of  the  soul  in  righteousness  is  a 
dominant  theme  in  the  whole  discourse.  Righteousness 
is  the  only  lasting  way  of  life  and  it  is  the  only  perma- 
nently filling  nourishment  of  which  one  can  partake. 

Again  "Blessed  are  the  merciful  for  they  shall  obtain 
mercy"  is  a  theme  developed  later.  The  words  of  Jesus 
in  various  places  run  along  this  line  which  for  want  of 
a  better  term  may  be  called  spiritual  reciprocity.  Like 
begets  like  in  the  spiritual  realm:  and  all  through  the 


THE  NATURE  OF  BLESSEDNESS        27 

New  Testament  we  find  such  teaching  as  that,  on  the 
sinister  side,  they  who  take  the  sword  shall  perish  hy 
the  sword  or  that  they  who  condemn  shall  be  condemned, 
and,  on  the  bright  side,  that  those  who  forgive  shall  be 
forgiven  and  the  merciful  shall  obtain  mercy. 

But  the  most  beautiful  form  of  like  reaching  unto  like 
is  given  in  the  remaining  Beatitude,  "Blessed  are  the  pure 
in  heart  for  they  shall  see  God."  We  can  appreciate  only 
that  to  which  our  souls  are  akin.  In  art,  literature,  and 
music  the  purer  our  perceptions  become,  the  deeper  is  our 
understanding.  Obviously  the  purer  our  hearts  become, 
the  more  we  shall  understand  of  God. 


The  Beatitudes,  then,  preface  with  marvelous  felicity 
the  great  discourse  which  is  to  follow.  They  preclude 
any  though,;  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  being  a  mere 
compilation  of  moral  and  ethical  precepts.  They  are 
based  upon  the  profoundest  possible  spiritual  conceptions. 
They  take  for  granted  a  wide-reaching  doctrine  of  God 
and  Man.  They  find  human  souls  as  such  infinitely 
precious — capable  of  sonship  to  God.  They  look  toward, 
and  cannot  be  understood  without  reference  to  the  estab- 
lishment of  an  ideal  commonwealth  which  is  called  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven  and  which  shall  transform  and  radi- 
cally revolutionize  the  accepted  ways  of  the  world. 

These  ideas  are  all  carried  out  in  the  sermon  proper. 
It  is  primarily  an  exposition  of  the  laws,  principles,  and 
methods — the  working  polity,  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven. 


THE  APPKOACH  TO  THE  CKOWD 


YOU  ARE  THE  SALT  OP  THE  EARTH;  BUT  IF  THE  SALT 
HAVE  LOST  ITS  SAVOR,  WHEKEWITH  CAN  ITS  SALTINESS 
BE  RESTORED?  IT  IS  GOOD  FOR  NOTHING  FURTHER  EX- 
CEPT TO  BE  CAST  OUT  AND  TRAMPLED  UNDER  FOOT  BY 
MEN. 

YOU  ARE  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  WORLD.  A  CITY  CANNOT 
BE  HID  WHEN  IT  LIES  ON  A  HILL:  AND  THEY  DO  NOT 
BURN  A  LAMP  AND  SET  IT  UNDER  A  MEASURE  BUT  UPON 
A  LAMPSTAND,  AND  IT  GIVES  LIGHT  TO  ALL  IN  THE 
HOUSE.  SO  LET  YOUR  LIGHT  SHINE  BEFORE  MEN  THAT 
THEY  MAY  SEE  YOUR  BEAUTIFUL  DEEDS  AND  GLORIFY 
YOUR  FATHER  IN  HEAVEN. 

DO  NOT  SUPPOSE  THAT  I  HAVE  COME  TO  DESTROY  THE 
LAW  OR  THE  PROPHETS:  I  HAVE  NOT  COME  TO  DESTROY 
BUT  TO  FULFILL.  FOR  OF  A  TRUTH  I  SAY  TO  YOU  THAT 
UNTIL  HEAVEN  AND  EARTH  PASS  AWAY,  NOT  ONE  IOTA 
OR  ONE  DOT  SHALL  PASS  FROM  THE  LAW  UNTIL  ALL  HAS 
BEEN  FULFILLED.  THEREFORE  WHOEVER  BREAKS  ONE 
OF  THE  LEAST  OF  THESE  (following?)  COMMANDMENTS 
AND  TEACHES  MEN  SO,  HE  SHALL  BE  CALLED  LEAST  IN 
THE  KINGDOM  OF  HEAVEN;  BUT  WHOEVER  DOES  THEM 
AND  TEACHES  THEM,  HE  SHALL  BE  CALLED  GREAT  IN 
THE  KINGDOM  OF  HEAVEN.  FOR  I  SAY  TO  YOU  THAT  IF 
YOUR  RIGHTEOUSNESS  DOES  NOT  GO  FAR  BEYOND  THAT 
OF  THE  SCRIBES  AND  PHARISEES,  YOU  SHALL  NOT  GO 
INTO  THE  KINGDOM  OF  HEAVEN. 

(Matthew  V:   13-20.) 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  APPROACH  TO  THE  CROWD 

THE  prefatory  Beatitudes  are  followed  by  a  brief 
introduction  to  the  sermon  proper.  In  this  intro- 
duction Jesus  makes  his  approach  to  His  hearers, 
and  the  nature  of  that  approach  should  be  closely  studied 
by  any  one  who  wishes  to  know  the  mind  of  Christ.  For 
unless  He  was  a  poseur  or  a  charlatan,  these  introductory 
words  show  what  He  thought  about  His  followers  and 
about  Himself. 

As  to  what  He  thought  about  His  followers  something 
was  said  in  the  last  chapter.  But  it  is  brought  out  even 
more  clearly  here.  "You  are  the  salt  of  the  earth.  You 
are  the  light  of  the  world." 

From  the  point  of  view  of  those,  at  the  time,  who  loved 
the  chief  seats  in  the  synagogues,  and  from  the  point  of 
view  of  many  of  those  in  the  Church  to-day  who  love  pre- 
eminence, these  words  are  not  very  satisfactory.  For 
Jesus  was  speaking  to  an  uncouth  crowd  of  one  of  the, 
apparently,  most  insignificant  types  of  peasantry  in  the 
whole  Roman  Empire — poorly  clad,  badly  housed,  ill  fed, 
unlearned,  and  not  particularly  clean.  To  an  alert,  up-to- 
date  American  they  would  give  little  but  a  feeling  of 
loathing  disgust.  More  advanced  and  prepossessing  mem- 
bers of  the  same  nation  had  been  called  by  Cicero  "the 
odium  of  the  human  race,"  and  here  was  the  despised 
Jew  at  his  worst. 

But  whether  Jesus  was  thinking  of  this  crowd  pri- 
marily as  Jews,  it  would  be  hard  to  say.  If  He  were  His 

31 


32  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

words  would  be  fully  justified.  For  it  is  to  the  Jewish 
race  that  we  owe  the  vision  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  among 
men — the  disturbing  ideal  of  social  justice  which  is  the 
only  element  that  gives  flavor  to  the  common  life  of  the 
world  and  makes  it  palatable.  And  to  the  same  race  we 
owe  the  strongest  and  clearest  spiritual  light  that  has  yet 
shone.  For  the  two  great  modern  religions,  Christianity 
and  Mohammedanism,  received  their  kindling  light  from 
Judaism.  So  that  in  this  very  special  sense  the  Jewish 
people  are  the  salt  of  the  eartE  and  the  light  of  the  world. 

But  true  as  this  interpretation  would  be,  the  words 
taken  in  connection  with  the  passage  in  which  they  lie 
demand  a  broader  interpretation;  which  takes  us  at  once 
to  the  heart  of  the  Simple  Gospel.  The  point  under  con- 
sideration was  touched  upon  in  dealing  with  the  first 
Beatitude  but  it  is  so  fundamental  to  the  entire  Christian 
system  that  it  cannot  be  overemphasized.  The  sermon 
reiterates  the  idea  and  any  interpretation  of  the  sermon 
must  do  the  same. 

It  is  merely  this,  that  the  people — the  disgustingly 
common  people  are  the  supreme  values  of  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven.  This  is  not  the  belief  of  the  world,  and  even 
many  of  those  discontented  with  the  present  course  of  the 
world  put  economic  considerations  before  anything  else. 
We  have  already  noticed  that  modern  law,  with  its  exalta- 
tion of  property  and  vested  interests,  does  not  take  this 
point  of  view;  and  we  shall  see  later  that  business — the 
consuming  activity  of  our  time,  to  which  the  law  some- 
times seems  merely  the  obsequious  handmaid — has  as  its 
central  motive  the  anti-Christian  principle.  Nevertheless 
in  the  teaching  of  Jesus  the  human  personality  is  put 
far  above  all  other  considerations  in  the  world.  Salt  and 
light  are  the  elements  which  give  most  meaning  to  the 
circumstances  of  everyday  existence  and  human  persons 


THE  APPROACH  TO  THE  CROWD    33 

are  the  essence  of  the  meaning  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven. 

Now  if  we  take  into  consideration  all  the  words  of 
Jesus,  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  and  other  discourses  as 
well,  it  will  be  perfectly  clear  that  the  secret  of  the  worth 
of  the  human  personality  is  its  capacity  for  service. 
"Whosoever  would  become  great  among  you  let  him  be 
your  servant."  "He  that  saveth  his  life  shall  lose  it,  but 
he  that  loseth  his  life,  for  My  sake,  shall  save  it." 

This  is  a  truth  that  humanity  instinctively  recognizes 
even  though  the  greater  part  of  the  world's  activity  fails 
to  conform  to  this  motive.  We  give  our  sincerest  homage 
to  those  who  have  served  most  and  have  lost  themselves 
in  the  common  good — to  the  poets  who  have  given  us  light, 
to  the  inventors  who  have  lessened  our  toil,  to  the  musi- 
cians who  have  given  us  joy,  and  to  the  statesmen  who, 
refusing  to  be  corporations'  men,  have  enlarged  our  oppor- 
tunities. 

In  opposition  to  this  way  of  estimating  human  worth 
our  money-grubbing  age  has  set  up  the  most  definite  imagi- 
nable philosophy.  Nietzsche  may  have  had  absurd  notions 
as  to  some  of  the  details  of  the  Christian  system  but  he 
is  eternally  right  in  representing  his  central  idea  as  dia- 
metrically opposed  to  the  central  idea  of  Christ.  The 
Superman  must  not  on  any  account  lose  himself ;  he  must 
serve  his  individual  interests  to  the  full  no  matter 
what  nor  whom  he  has  to  trample  and  crush  in  the 
process. 

But  Nietzsche,  like  all  great  philosophers,  is  merely  an 
interpreter  of  the  spirit  of  his  time:  and,  while  more 
violent,  his  philosophy  is  of  a  piece  with  Ibsen's  unbridled 
individualism.  Both  of  these  masterly  interpreters  of 
modernity  went  insane — perhaps  because  their  dominating 
thought  was  out  of  keeping  with  the  saner  realities  of 


34  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

human  nature;  and  yet  that  thought  was  in  perfect  har- 
mony with  the  actual  trend  of  the  life  of  their  time. 

However,  in  understanding  the  Nietzschean  age  we  must, 
as  was  noted  in  the  last  chapter,  always  remember  that 
far  more  typical  than  Prussian  or  other  militarism  and 
naval  megalomania  is  American  business,  with  its  all- 
consuming  trusts.  But  if  any  one  still  doubts  the  literal 
accuracy  of  this  contention,  he  will  find  more  than  suffi- 
cient proof  later  on  when  Mammon  is  considered. 

The  point  here  to  be  noted  is  that  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
is  utterly  opposed  to  this  characteristic  development  of  the 
spirit  of  our  age.  He  gives  even  the  least  prepossessing 
person,  simply  because  of  his  personality,  full  recognition 
in  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven:  and  the  meaning  of  exalted 
personality  is  found  in  self-forgetting  service. 

The  nature  of  salt  is  to  lose  itself  in  that  which  it 
savors,  and  the  condition  of  light  is  the  consumption  of 
substance  for  the  good  of  those  around  it.  Jesus  urges 
strength  of  character,  therefore,  in  those  whom  he  calls 
the  salt  of  the  earth  and  the  light  of  the  world.  Do  not 
be  salt  without  savor;  do  not  let  your  light  be  dim;  give 
yourself  whole-heartedly  to  the  service  of  others. 

But  there  are  circumstances  which  sometimes  prevent 
those  who  would  gladly  serve  from  rendering  service.  It 
would  be  impossible  to  say  whether  these  circumstances 
occurred  to  the  mind  of  Christ  at  this  point  but  it  is 
not  improbable  that  they  did.  In  any  case  it  is  a  legiti- 
mate deduction  from  the  words  here  that  everything  which 
tends  to  take  the  strength  from  the  salt  of  the  earth  or 
to  dim  the  light  of  the  world  must  be  destroyed  when 
the  Kingdom  comes.  The  anti-social  conditions  of  the 
world  of  the  Superman  must  give  place  to  the  social  jus- 
tice of  the  Heavenly  Realm.  The  devitalizing  evils  of 
unemployment  and  overemployment,  of  indifference  and 


THE  APPROACH  TO  THE  CEOWD    35 

exploitation,  of  insanitation  and  illiteracy,  and  all  the 
other  numberless  unsavory  and  darkening  conditions  that 
beset  the  common  life  must  pass  away.  The  salt  must 
keep  its  savor  and  the  light  must  not  be  obstructed. 


So  much  for  Jesus'  thought  in  regard  to  His  followers : 
but  there  is,  in  these  introductory  words,  also  a  somewhat 
neglected  suggestion  with  regard  to  His  thought  about 
Himself.  This  discussion  will  not  endeavor  to  advance 
a  Christology — we  have  Christologies  enough  already — 
and  yet,  if  we  consider  the  time  and  the  place,  the  un- 
limited authority  which  the  Master  is  about  to  assume 
here  is  astounding.  To  His  hearers — and  He  was  brought 
up  in  the  same  conditions  with  them — the  Old  Testament 
Law  was  the  most  inviolably  sacred  thing  conceivable.  It 
was  the  eternal,  unchangeable  expression  of  the  Divine 
Will. 

But  Jesus  is  about  to  nullify  whole  sections  of  the  Old 
Testament  Law.  He  is  going  to  set  aside  basic  principles 
of  that  Law  and  substitute  higher  principles.  His  law 
giving  is  different  from  that  of  Moses  which  is  repre- 
sented as  intermediated  from  God.  Jesus  gives  the  new 
Law  on  His  own  authority : — "You  have  heard  that  it  has 
been  said  to  them  of  old  time  (i.e.  the  Old  Testament 
says)  but  7  say  unto  you."  No  wonder  that  His  hearers 
were  struck  with  astonishment:  they  had  never  imagined 
that  a  man  would  dare  speak  with  authority  and  not  as 
the  scribes. 

Yet  He  approaches  the  New  Law  with  caution  and  with 
tact.  He  endeavors  to  avoid  giving  any  shock  that  will 
spoil  the  effect  of  His  words.  "Do  not  think  that  I  have 
come  to  destroy  the  Law  and  the  Prophets.  I  have  not 
come  to  destroy  but  to  fulfill." 


36  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

Thus  He  relieves  the  shock  with  the  promise  of  some- 
thing constructive.  He  is  going  to  destroy  the  details  of 
the  Law  but  merely  to  supplant  them  with  something 
vastly  better.  He  is  going  to  fulfill  by  filling  in  with 
elements  in  which  the  Law  and  the  Prophets  have  been 
lacking. 

But  here  there  arises  for  the  extreme  literalist  a  sore 
perplexity.  How  shall  we  reconcile  with  what  is  to  follow 
it,  the  next  sentence, — "Of  a  truth  I  say  to  you  until 
Heaven  and  earth  pass  away  not  one  iota  or  one  dot  shall 
pass  away  from  the  Law  till  all  be  fulfilled"?  Almost 
immediately  He  is  going  to  change  the  Old  Testament 
law  of  divorce,  He  is  going  to  annul  the  Old  Testament 
law  in  regard  to  oaths,  and  He  is  going  to  expunge  com- 
pletely the  Old  Testament  law  of  "an  eye  for  an  eye  and 
a  tooth  for  a  tooth."  Obviously  there  passes  away  in 
these  changes  something  more  than  an  iota  or  a  dot.  Here, 
apparently,  is  a  glaring  inconsistency. 

It  may  be  due  to  the  misquoting  of  the  actual  words 
of  the  Saviour.  When  these  words  were  written  the  feel- 
ing for  literal  accuracy  in  quotation  had  not  yet  developed 
in  the  human  consciousness  and  they  may  represent  merely 
the  impression  of  a  hearer  who  thought,  because  Jesus 
said  that  He  was  not  going  to  destroy  anything  vital,  that 
He  meant  that  He  was  not  going  to  destroy  any  detail 
of  the  Old  Testament  Law.  Jesus  may  not  have  gone  so 
far  as  to  say  "not  one  iota  or  one  dot." 

Or,  in  the  mood  of  the  modern  evolutionary  thought, 
it  is  possible  to  say  that  the  laws  which  Jesus  changed  or 
annulled  had  been  fulfilled  already.  They  had  served 
their  purpose  in  a  less  advanced  age  and,  having  been  thus 
fulfilled,  had  passed  out  of  usefulness.  This  explanation 
does  not  fit  in  perfectly  with  the  ideas  current  at  the 
time  but  it  is  a  possible  interpretation. 


THE  APPKOACH  TO  THE  CROWD    37 

But  the  demands  of  literalism  can  be  satisfied  by  finding 
an  abrupt  change  in  this  paragraph  from  the  old  Law 
and  the  Prophets  to  His  own  new  Law  taking  place  in 
the  second  sentence : — "Not  one  iota  or  dot  shall  pass  away 
from  the  Law."  It  may  be  something  more  than  an  ex- 
egetical  quibble  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  in  this 
sentence  Jesus  does  not  repeat  the  expression  "the  Law 
and  the  Prophets" — His  usual  term  for  the  Old  Testa- 
ment: and  "the  Law"  here  may  mean  the  ideal  Law  in 
the  heart  and  mind  of  God — the  Law  which  is  the  center 
of  Christ's  own  consciousness  and  whose  principles,  so 
infinitely  above  the  written  law,  He  is  enunciating. 

At  all  events  there  occurs  somewhere  in  this  paragraph 
a  transition  from  the  thought  of  the  old  law  to  the  idea 
of  the  new  law.  The  next  sentence  speaks  of  "these" 
commandments,  in  some  manuscripts  clearly  indicating  the 
ones  that  He  is  about  to  give;  and  the  last  sentence  con- 
demns that  righteousness  of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees 
which  is  based  entirely  on  the  Old  Testament  Law. 

His  own  Law  He  makes  supreme.  "Whoever  shall 
break  one  of  the  least  of  these  commandments  and  shall 
teach  men  so,  he  shall  be  called  least  in  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven;  but  whoever  shall  do  them  and  teach  them,  he 
shall  be  called  great  in  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven." 

Here  as  everywhere  in  the  words  of  Jesus  the  Kingdom 
is  uppermost ;  and  there  is  a  clear  indication  of  the  nature 
of  citizenship  in  the  Heavenly  Realm.  For  this  is  one 
of  the  many  passages  which  make  it  evident  that  Jesus 
made  citizenship  in  His  Ideal  State  dependent  upon  a 
person's  fitness  of  character  to  live  according  to  the  laws 
of  that  State — his  ability  to  conduct  himself  according  to 
the  moral  ideals  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 

This  is  in  accordance  with  what  all  students  of  political 
institutions  now  see — that  democracies  are  possible  only 


38 

as  the  people  in  them  are  fit  for  self-government.  De- 
mocracy in  the  long  run  depends  absolutely  upon  human 
character:  and  democracy  to-day  is  weak  because  so  many 
of  its  citizens  lack  the  will  power  to  put  the  commonwealth 
above  individual  wealth.  This  is  such  a  common  weak- 
ness that  we  have  to  be  reminded  constantly  that  the  King- 
dom must  be  put  first;  for  if  it  do  not  come  first  it  must 
certainly  fail.  A  kingdom  that  does  not  hold  our  pri- 
mary allegiance  is  not  really  a  Kingdom. 

Now  it  must  be  admitted  that  kingdom  is  not  a  term 
which  harmonizes  thoroughly  to-day  with  our  idea  of  an 
ideal  commonwealth.  But  the  petty  cavilling  at  the  term 
which  is  now  rather  prevalent  is  hardly  creditable  to  the 
fine  minds  who  carry  it  on.  Kingdom  as  used  by  Jesus 
and  in  the  general  usage  of  the  time  was  a  conventional 
term,  and  Ferrero  tells  us  that  the  Romans  still  thought 
of  their  country  as  a  republic  in  spite  of  the  imperial 
claims.  Men  of  the  days  when  Jesus  preached  would  use 
the  term  with  as  little  reference  to  the  ruler  as  has  the 
modern  liberal  Englishman  when  he  speaks  of  the  empire. 
As  we  have  already  noted  the  term  as  given  in  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  does  not  mention  a  Ruling  Person:  it  is 
always  the  Kingdom,  or,  if  you  will,  the  polity  of  Heaven. 

And  yet  it  must  be  admitted  that  throughout  the  New 
Testament  the  expression  Kingdom  of  God  is  more  fre- 
quent. But  according  to  all  New  Testament  teaching 
about  God  His  Kingdom  must  be  radically  different  from 
the  world's  conception  of  a  kingdom.  If  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount  teaches  nothing  else,  it  surely  teaches  that 
personality  is  supreme  in  the  Kingdom — that  the  Heav- 
enly polity  is  based  on  personal  and  not  in  the  slightest 
degree  on  official  relationships.  The  peace-loving,  peace- 
creating  citizens  of  this  Kingdom  are  blessed  because  they 
shall  be  called  (with  rhetorical  precision)  the  sons  of  God.' 


THE  APPEOACH  TO  THE  CROWD    39 

His  ideal  Kingdom,  polity,  rule,  or  commonwealth  exists 
in  the  Heavens — in  the  spiritual  realm  above  and  beyond 
the  world;  and  it  can  be  brought  down  to  earth  only  by 
exalted,  highly  developed  persons  who,  realizing  their 
sonship  to  the  Divine  Father,  work  out  the  essentially 
democratic  family  organization  of  the  brotherhood  of  man. 
The  Elder  Brother  may  speak  conventionally  of  the  King- 
dom but  He  never  anywhere  dwells  upon  God  as  King :  He 
invariably  speaks  of  Him  as  Father.  There  is  no  autoc- 
racy— that  is  incompatible  with  the  idea  of  a  Supreme 
Person.  Meekness  is  blessedness  and  the  Supreme  Per- 
son is  surely  a  blessed  Person :  He  does  not  violently  com- 
pel those  who  make  up  His  commonwealth  to  do  His 
will:  He  appeals  to  their  personal  devotion  to  Him. 

Therefore  one's  degree  of  personal  fitness  for  life  in  the 
family  of  God  is  the  only  basis  of  distinction  therein. 
He  who  best  conforms  his  conduct  and  his  teaching  to  its 
principles  is  greatest  in  its  life. 

On  the  other  hand  he  who  does  not  conform  his  life 
and  his  teaching  to  those  principles  shall  be  called  least 
in  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  Thus  we  are  again  con- 
fronted with  the  eternal  distinction  between  the  Kingdom 
and  the  world.  For  those  who  torture  the  obvious  mean- 
ings of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  out  of  all  resemblance 
to  what  they  actually  are  secure  the  highest  esteem  in 
this  world.  On  the  contrary  no  one  is  likely  to  become 
influential  in  a  worldly  Church  if  he  urges  upon  the 
world's  leaders  meekness  as  the  way  to  power,  or  if  he 
advocates  the  turning  of  the  other  cheek  and  the  giving 
of  the  cloak  to  the  purloiner  of  the  coat.  Success  in  a 
worldly  Church  is  not  a  little  dependent  upon  a  clergy- 
man's ability  gracefully  to  make  the  Syrian  household 
needle  assume  the  proportions  of  Cleopatra's  needle  and 
to  emaciate  camels  to  the  vanishing  point. 


40  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

If  we  were  not  so  accustomed  to  this  process  of  tamper- 
ing with  the  Lord's  clear  meaning  it  would  shock  us  be- 
yond expression.  Ruskin  was  well  within  the  bounds  of 
sober  judgment  when,  referring  to  the  same  process  in  his 
day,  he  said: — "I  know  no  previous  instance  in  history 
of  a  nation's  establishing  a  systematic  disobedience  to  the 
first  principles  of  its  professed  religion." 

This  modern  hypocrisy  is  considerably  worse  than  that 
which  Jesus  condemned  in  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  of 
old  because,  as  the  next  chapter  will  indicate,  the  prin- 
ciples laid  down  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  as  the  foun- 
dation of  Christian  righteousness  do  not  admit  of  the 
ancient  legal  chicanery  by  which  the  Pharisees  made  the 
letter  of  the  law  defeat  its  spirit.  The  Scribes  and  Phari- 
sees, however,  are  the  nearest  New  Testament  parallel 
to  the  modern  respectability  who  play  fast  and  loose  with 
the  teachings  of  Jesus  while  they  call  Him  Lord.  The 
socially  prominent,  highly  esteemed,  self-satisfied  leaders 
in  modern  life  are  still  eager  to  make  the  letter  of  the 
law  (even  the  law  which,  strictly  speaking,  has  no  letter) 
exclude,  to  their  own  advantage,  actual  justice;  and  they 
are  still  unwilling  to  follow  the  instructions  of  Christ  in 
the  more  eternal  righteousness.  They  are  almost  uncon- 
scious of  the  blasphemy  with  which  they  set  aside  the  clear 
meaning  of  the  Master's  words  for  what  they  think  that 
meaning  ought  to  be.  They  are,  for  the  most  part,  less 
religiously  inclined,  less  generous  (tithing  would  be  un- 
speakable to  them),  and  not  so  strictly  moral  as  were  the 
original  Scribes  and  Pharisees:  but  with  regard  to  self- 
esteem  and  smug  content  with  their  own  way  of  life  there 
is  little  choice  between  the  respectability  of  Jesus'  time 
and  that  of  to-day. 

Therefore  the  closing  words  of  the  introduction  to  the 
Great  Discourse  apply,  if  anything,  with  more  fitness  to 


THE  APPROACH  TO  THE  CROWD    41 

the  respectability  of  our  own  time  than  to  that  which  Jesus 
had  immediately  in  mind.  These  words  are  even  more 
withering  when  we  remember  the  laudatory  words  with 
which,  at  the  beginning  of  the  introduction,  Christ  ap- 
proached the  vulgar  crowd.  Now  as  well  as  then  the 
world's  accepted  respectability  is  beneath  the  standard  of 
the  Kingdom.  Although  it  considers  itself  to  be  these,  it 
is  not  the  salt  of  the  earth  nor  the  light  of  the  world. 
"Except  your  righteousness  exceed  the  righteousness  of  the 
Scribes  and  Pharisees  (the  bourgeoise  respectability),  ye 
shall  in  no  case  enter  into  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven." 

The  underlying  idea  here  is  frequently  given  in  the 
sayings  of  Jesus.  "The  last  shall  be  first  and  the  first 
last"  is  a  fundamental  fact  of  the  Kingdom  in  its  radical, 
uncompromising  opposition  to  the  world.  The  Scribes  and 
Pharisees  were  the  highest  type  of  respectability  among 
the  Jewish  people  and  yet  they  are  called  unfit  for  citi- 
zenship in  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven :  but,  according  to  the 
thought  developed  in  the  following  passage  and  treated  in 
the  next  chapter,  it  is  the  underlying  spirit  and  not  the 
literal  interpretation  that  is  most  important,  and  wherever 
the  inadequate  way  of  life  characteristic  of  the  Pharisees 
prevails  to-day  it  comes  under  the  same  condemnation. 

The  social  bearing  of  this  truth,  then,  is  at  present  tre- 
mendous. It  is  closely  connected  with  the  permanent  ele- 
ment in  Karl  Marx's  very  insufficient  theory  of  social  or- 
ganization. To  many  of  us  who  try  to  keep  socially  awake 
the  scientific  determination  of  the  exact  amount  of  wealth 
which  each  producer  creates  is  not  conceivable.  To  sep- 
arate what  brain  contributes  from  what  brawn  produces 
is  the  simplest  of  many  difficulties  of  similar  nature.  But 
even  if  it  were  scientifically  possible  to  determine  approx- 
imately the  amount  of  wealth  produced  by  each  worker, 
that  would  not  give  a  just  basis  for  rewarding  the  worker. 


42  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

In  fact,  from  the  point  of  view  of  human  justice,  it  would 
be  only  a  little  in  advance  of  the  present  injustice  in 
economic  remuneration.  So  far  as  the  modern  process  is 
remunerative  at  all  it  rewards  lavishly,  to  the  diminution 
of  all  other  economic  return,  that  unsocial  power,  most 
unequally  distributed  among  men,  of  individual  financial 
acquisitiveness.  For  just  as  this  power  of  acquiring 
wealth  is  unequally  distributed  throughout  mankind,  with- 
out any  relation  to  the  finer  human  qualities,  so  the  power 
of  actual  creation  or  production  of  wealth  is  unequally 
distributed;  and  if  economic  reward  were  given  on  that 
basis  many  men  of  good  will  would  still  be  penalized 
through  no  fault  of  their  making.  Bellamy  long  ago  saw 
that  conscientious  effort  is  the  only  just  basis  of  economic 
remuneration. 

Nevertheless,  even  if  we  do  not  follow  all  of  Marx's 
quasi-scientific  vagaries,  we  ought  not  to  forget  that  he 
was  very  close  to  a  great  moral  truth ;  which  is  that  a  vast 
number  of  idle  persons  are  living  on  the  wealth  that  others 
produce,  consuming  in  extravagant  quantities  that  to  which 
they  have  earned  no  right.  These  parasites  come  first  in 
this  world :  they  are  everywhere  exalted,  praised,  deferred 
to,  and  fawned  upon.  It  is  almost  true  that  the  less  service 
they  render  the  higher  is  their  standing  in  the  general 
estimation;  for  the  upper  classes,  even  in  the  American 
democracy,  draw  a  more  or  less  sharp  line  of  demarcation 
between  those  who  have  made  their  money,  no  matter  how 
much  it  may  be,  and  those  who  have  inherited  theirs; 
the  higher  standing,  of  course,  being  given  to  those  who 
have  done  least  to  deserve  it. 

Then  there  is  the  further  very  disheartening  but  quite 
obvious  fact  that,  in  America  at  least,  the  poorest  service 
especially  in  higher  matters  usually  receives  the  greatest 
financial  return.  Our  later  consideration  of  Mammon  will 


THE  APPROACH  TO  THE  CROWD    43 

help  to  explain  the  fact  and  here  we  need  only  to  note  it. 
Splendid  work  receives  little  material  reward,  cheap  work 
is  exorbitantly  remunerative.  The  best  selling  novel  is 
seldom  a  great  piece  of  literature:  the  really  best  novel 
frequently  has  small  sales.  While  the  creator  of  one  of 
our  most  vapid,  so-called,  comic  sections  in  the  newspapers 
(Mutt  and  Jeff!)  was  receiving  many  thousands  of  dollars 
a  year,  Blakelock,  a  really  great  painter,  was  in  an  asylum 
largely  because  his  poverty  had  driven  him  frantic.  Mac- 
Dowell,  one  of  America's  very  few  musicians  of  rank, 
could  hardly  keep  body  and  soul  together  when  the  per- 
petrator of  "After  the  Ball"  was  making  a  fortune  out 
of  his  jingling  doggerel. 

But,  thank  God,  these  first  in  this  world  are  last  in 
the  Kingdom  because  there,  as  we  have  just  noted,  service 
is  the  basis  of  esteem.  The  greatest  there  is  not  exalted 
by  attracting  to  himself  the  wealth  that  others  have  pro- 
duced ;  he  is  exalted  by  becoming  the  servant  of  all.  This 
matter  will  come  up  again  but  it  must  be  obvious  already 
that  economically  the  first  shall  have  to  be  last  and  the 
last  first  if  a  socially  just  commonwealth  is  ever  established 
in  the  world. 


THE  LAW  OF  THE  HEAVENLY  EEALM 


YOU  HAVE  HEARD  THAT  IT  WAS  SAID  TO  THE  ANCIENTS 
—"THOU  SHALT  DO  NO  MURDER,  AND  WHOEVER  DOES 
MURDER  SHALL  BE  LIABLE  TO  THE  JUDGMENT."  BUT  I 
SAY  TO  YOU  THAT  EVERY  ONE  WHO  IS  ANGRY  WITH  HIS 
BROTHER  SHALL  BE  LIABLE  TO  THE  JUDGMENT;  AND 
WHOEVER  SAYS  TO  HIS  BROTHER  "BONEHEAD"  SHALL  BE 
LIABLE  TO  THE  COUNCIL;  AND  WHOEVER  SAYS  "YOU 
FOOL"  SHALL  BE  LIABLE  TO  THE  HELL  OF  FIRE.  THERE- 
FORE IF  YOU  BRING  YOUR  GIFT  TO  THE  ALTAR  AND 
THERE  REMEMBER  THAT  YOUR  BROTHER  HAS  SOME- 
THING AGAINST  YOU,  LEAVE  YOUR  GIFT  THERE  BEFORE 
THE  ALTAR  AND  GO  AWAY.  BE  RECONCILED  TO  YOUR 
BROTHER  FIRST  AND  THEN  COME  AND  OFFER  YOUR  GIFT. 

AGREE  WITH  YOUR  OPPONENT  QUICKLY  WHILE  YOU 
ARE  WITH  HIM  ON  THE  ROAD  IN  ORDER  THAT  YOUR  OP- 
PONENT MAY  NOT  DELIVER  YOU  OVER  TO  THE  JUDGE, 
AND  THE  JUDGE  HAND  YOU  OVER  TO  THE  SHERIFF,  AND 
YOU  BE  THROWN  INTO  JAIL.  BELIEVE  ME  YOU  WILL  NOT 
COME  OUT  FROM  THERE  TILL  YOU  HAVE  HANDED  OUT 
THE  LAST  CENT. 

YOU  HAVE  HEARD  THAT  IT  WAS  SAID  "THOU  SHALT 
NOT  COMMIT  ADULTERY":  BUT  I  TELL  YOU  THAT  EVERY 
ONE  WHO  LOOKS  AT  A  WOMAN  WITH  A  FEELING  OF  LUST 
HAS  COMMITTED  ADULTERY  WITH  HER  ALREADY  IN  HIS 
HEART.  AND  IF  YOUR  RIGHT  EYE  CAUSE  YOU  TO  STUM- 
BLE, TEAR  IT  OUT  AND  THROW  IT  AWAY  FROM  YOU:  IT 
IS  PREFERABLE  FOR  YOU  THAT  YOU  LOSE  ONE  OF  YOUR 
MEMBERS  RATHER  THAN  THAT  YOUR  WHOLE  BODY  BE 
THROWN  INTO  HELL.  AND  IF  YOUR  RIGHT  HAND  CAUSE 
YOU  TO  STUMBLE,  CUT  IT  OFF  AND  THROW  IT  AWAY  FROM 
YOU:  IT  IS  PREFERABLE  THAT  ONE  OF  YOUR  MEMBERS 
BE  LOST  THAN  THAT  YOUR  WHOLE  BODY  BE  THROWN 
INTO  HELL. 

AND  IT  WAS  SAID  "WHOEVER  DIVORCES  HIS  WIFE,  LET 
HIM  GIVE  HER  A  BILL  OF  DIVORCE":  BUT  I  SAY  TO  YOU 
THAT  EVERY  ONE  WHO  DIVORCES  HIS  WIFE,  EXCEPT  FOR 
UNFAITHFULNESS,  MAKES  HER  COMMIT  ADULTERY:  AND 
WHOEVER  MARRIES  A  WOMAN  WHO  HAS  BEEN  DIVORCED 
(perhaps  'has  divorced  herself),  COMMITS  ADULTERY. 

AGAIN  YOU  HAVE  HEARD  THAT  IT  WAS  SAID  TO  THE 
ANCIENTS  "THOU  SHALT  NOT  SWEAR  FALSELY  BUT  SHALL 
PERFORM  TO  THE  LORD  THINE  OATHS":  BUT  I  SAY  TO  YOU 
DO  NOT  SWEAR  AT  ALL:  NOT  BY  HEAVEN  BECAUSE  IT  IS 
GOD'S  THRONE;  AND  NOT  BY  THE  EARTH  BECAUSE  IT 
IS  THE  STOOL  OF  HIS  FEET;  AND  NOT  BY  JERUSALEM 
BECAUSE  IT  IS  THE  CITY  OF  THE  GREAT  KING;  AND  NOT 
BY  YOUR  HEAD  BECAUSE  YOU  ARE  UNABLE  TO  MAKE  ONE 
HAIR  WHITE  OR  BLACK.  BUT  LET  YOUR  ASSERTION  BE 
"YES  YES,  NO  NO";  FOR  ANYTHING  MORE  THAN  THESE 
IS  FROM  THE  EVIL. 

(Matthew  V:  21-37.) 


CHAPTEE  IV 

THE  LAW  OF  THE  HEAVENLY  REALM 

WE  come  now  to  the  main  body  of  the  Sermon: 
and  it  is  very  fitting  that  a  discourse  dealing 
primarily  with  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  should 
give,  at  the  outset,  the  fundamental  principles  of  that 
Kingdom.  Therefore  the  introduction  is  followed  by  an 
extremely  simple  exposition  of  the  Heavenly  law. 

That  law  contemplates  an  inestimably  higher  type  of 
righteousness,  as  we  have  just  noted,  than  the  type  main- 
tained by  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  in  strict  obedience 
to  their  law — the  Old  Testament  Law  under  its  rabbini- 
cal interpretations.  Having  told  His  followers  that  in 
order  to  attain  citizenship  in  the  Heavenly  Realm  they 
must  acquire  a  better  quality  of  righteousness  than  that 
of  these  most  highly  esteemed  persons  of  their  race,  Jesus 
at  once  indicates  the  essence  of  the  difference  between  the 
Pharisaic,  earthly  righteousness  and  that  of  the  Kingdom 
above  the  earth. 

That  difference  is  radical:  the  two  types  of  righteous- 
ness are  as  far  apart  as  the  East  is  from  the  West.  The 
Pharisaic  righteousness  looks  always  to  the  visible  effect: 
the  saving  righteousness  of  the  Kingdom  looks  to  the  pro- 
ductive cause.  The  difference  in  method  is  like  that  be- 
tween two  medical  systems  one  of  which  would  treat  dis- 
ease by  applying  remedies  to  its  external  symptoms  while 
the  other  would  try  to  rectify  the  internal  disturbance 
producing  those  symptoms. 

This  distinction  is  basic  in  the  entire  New  Testament 

47 


48  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

doctrine  of  righteousness.  For  whether  or  not  St.  Paul 
added  or  subtracted  from  the  original  Gospel  message,  his 
most  elusive  and  abstruse  ethical  discussions  reach,  in 
the  last  analysis,  the  exact  point  which  Jesus  makes  un- 
mistakably clear  in  the  passage  under  consideration.  The 
Apostle  has  one  sentence  which  expresses  the  point  more 
satisfactorily  than  whole  pages  of  some  of  his  dissertations 
to  the  same  effect:  and  there  is  no  more  illuminating 
commentary  possible  on  this  portion  of  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount  than  that  sentence — "The  letter  killeth  but  the 
spirit  giveth  life." 

This  is  the  whole  point:  The  Pharisaic  righteousness 
is,  essentially,  dead  literalism;  the  ideal  Christian  right- 
eousness is  living  spirituality;  and  the  two  are  utterly 
incompatible.  The  passage  the  beginning  of  which  we 
have  now  reached  treats  in  a  splendid  crescendo  the  prin- 
ciple that  the  human  spirit  can  emphasize  but  one  great 
interest  at  a  time ;  and  if  visible  forms  of  conduct  make  up 
the  consuming  interest,  the  impulses  and  causes  which 
produce  conduct  are  necessarily  neglected. 

It  is  a  law  pervading  every  realm  of  life.  Emphasis 
upon  formality  diverts  human  energy  from  spirituality; 
and  the  times  of  the  most  meticulous  observance  of  re- 
ligious and  social  ceremonial  are  usually,  if  not  always, 
the  times  of  least  moral  vigor.  The  period  of  the  Caroline 
Restoration  in  England  is  typical.  Then  religious  cere- 
monial was  elaborate  and  the  manners  of  society  were  ex- 
cessive but  good  morals  were  largely  wanting. 

The  same  principle  appears  in  the  field  of  art  where 
it  is  the  rule  that  to  conventionalize  is  to  devitalize.  The 
essence  of  a  conventional  design  is  its  remoteness  from 
the  living  reality  which  it  represents. 

Now  Phariseeism  was  conventional  religious  and  legal 


THE  LAW  OF  THE  HEAVENLY  REALM  49 

formalism  raised  to  its  highest  power.  The  multiplicity 
of  ceremonies  required  in  the  commonest  daily  activities 
and  the  rigidity  of  legal  enactments,  naturally  incapable 
of  adapting  themselves  to  the  variable  elements  in  the 
living  human  personality,  made  Phariseeism,  at  its  best, 
a  living  death.  It  tended  to  destroy  all  spontaneity  and 
naturalness — all  real  life — in  those  who  followed  its  teach- 
ings. 

The  fundamental  defect  of  this  system  according  to 
St.  Paul,  who  mastered  it  completely  and  followed  it 
scrupulously  before  he  became  its  most  severe  critic,  was 
its  adoration  of  the  written  law — a  very  defective  thing 
even  in  its  most  perfect  form.  This  defectiveness  neces- 
sarily inheres  in  written  law,  if  for  no  other  reason,  be- 
cause of  the  fact  that  while  it  is  the  best  instrument  we 
have,  language  is  a  very  imperfect  instrument  for  human 
expression.  The  most  expressive  language  yet  devised 
could  not  begin  to  cover  the  infinite  variety  of  refinements 
in  human  relationships  of  which  ideal  justice  would  have 
to  take  full  account.  But  even  if  language  were  capable 
of  such  nicety  of  expression  it  would  still  be  incapable 
of  defining  ideal  justice  because,  even  if  to-day  we  could 
formulate  a  code  of  laws  adequately  covering  every  human 
relationship  that  had  yet  arisen,  to-morrow  there  would 
arise  new  relationships  not  contemplated  before. 

This  fact  in  regard  to  civil  law  has  its  parallel  in  scien- 
tific law.  It  is  said  that  the  best  scientific  text-books  are 
usable  for  only  a  few  years  because  of  the  rapidly  increas- 
ing body  of  scientific  knowledge.  Science  is  continually 
establishing  laws  which  seem  adequate  and  are  adequate 
to  the  knowledge  already  possessed  but  which  constantly 
have  to  be  changed  in  the  light  of  newly  discovered  facts. 
As  when,  to  take  one  out  of  countless  examples,  the  de- 


50  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

velopment  of  the  study  of  the  radio-active  elements  showed 
that  they  did  not  conform  to  the  laws  that  were  supposed 
to  hold  true  of  all  elements. 

Human  language,  then,  is  not  adequate  to  the  task  of 
expressing  laws  that  shall  be  good  permanently  in  any 
living,  developing  society.  For  the  expressed  law  does 
not  change  and  expand  while  the  living  realities  to 
which  it  applies  are  always  changing,  growing,  expand- 
ing. 

This  truth,  by  the  way,  is  one  of  the  most  important 
that  can  be  considered  in  the  reconstruction  of  the  Di- 
vinely condemned  social  and  governmental  systems  of  this 
world.  Many,  perhaps  most,  of  those  who  think  vigor- 
ously and  in  least  hampered  fashion,  and  who  have  caught 
a  vision  of  a  more  just  social  order,  have  no  misgivings 
in  regard  to  far-reaching  changes  that  are  likely  to  be 
instituted:  we  cannot  see  how  under  modern  enlighten- 
ment a  worse  system  than  the  established  social  order 
could  arise.  For  the  exploitation  of  the  weak  by  the  strong 
— the  enrichment  of  the  few  at  the  expense  of  the  many, 
is  the  characteristic  growth  of  this  present  time,  rooted 
deep  in  its  soil — a  tree  of  death  whose  branches  are  for  the 
bruising  of  the  nations,  whose  flower  and  consummation 
is  war.  And  yet  impossible  as  it  would  be  to  establish 
a  worse  system,  the  socially  improved  schemes  which  are 
suggested  to  supplant  the  present  one  seem  to  have  a 
tendency  toward  a  superstitious  devotion  to  law.  The 
various  Socialist  Political  parties  for  example — probably 
the  most  idealistic  and  sincerely  devoted  to  the  common 
welfare  that  have  yet  arisen — do  have  in  spite  of  all  their 
merits  a  more  or  less  pronounced  predilection  for  a  stifling 
legalism.  To  one  not  quite  converted  to  their  faith  they 
seem  to  restrict  unnecessarily  the  actions  of  their  indi- 
vidual members.  A  caricature  of  the  impression  which 


THE  LAW  OF  THE  HEAVENLY  EEALM  51 

they  give  might  suggest  that  they  would  let  a  mad  dog 
run  loose  until  the  proper  committee  or  person  to  whom 
that  work  had  been  delegated  brought  the  officially  desig- 
nated weapon  for  killing  mad  dogs. 

But  the  efficiency  of  all  government  is  constantly  sub- 
ject to  danger  along  this  line.  Much  of  the  conventional 
opposition  to  government  ownership  of  public  utilities 
would  be  a  little  less  absurd  if  it  took  this  fact  as  its 
main  object  of  attack.  For  the  essential  consideration 
for  any  successful  ownership  of  public  utilities  is  the  pro- 
curing of  efficient  managers  and  superintendents,  and  there 
is  no  reason  why  governments  cannot  secure  these  as  well 
as  do  private  corporations:  the  great  danger  to  govern- 
mental efficiency  does  not  lie  along  this  line :  it  lies  rather 
in  the  tendency  to  hamper  good  managers  with  the  numer- 
ous petty  rules  and  regulations  which  it  seems  to  be  the 
nature  of  government  to  establish.  The  wasteful — as  to 
time,  energy,  and  material — superfluity  of  reports;  the 
needlessly  involved,  efficiency  impeding  minutiae  of  official 
instructions;  and  all  the  imbecility  comprehended  in  the 
popular  term  "red  tape"  make  up  the  most  serious  menace 
to  efficient  government  in  any  sphere. 

This  menace  is  eliminated  in  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven. 
For  there  the  inner  causes  and  motives  of  conduct  are 
emphasized  rather  than  the  outward  acts.  In  the  King- 
dom the  spirit  in  which  one  acts  is  given  the  same  prece- 
dence that  in  this  world  is  accorded  to  the  literal  defini- 
tion of  the  act ;  and  in  this  way  there  is  attained  a  deeper 
understanding  of  wrong  and  a  broader  range  of  expression 
for  right. 

Now  the  attainment  of  such  a  method  in  practical  life 
is  not  merely  a  vague  dream.  It  is  already  being  achieved 
in  the  various  professions  which  from  time  immemorial 
have  been  constricted  by  stifling  rules,  laws,  and  dogmata : 


52  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

and  the  modern  trend  of  the  professions  is  away  from  the 
literal  toward  the  spiritual. 

In  this  trend,  whatever  the  faults  of  the  profession  may 
be,  the  Christian  ministry  must  be  given  credit  for  taking 
the  lead.  The  first  profession  to  analyze  its  scriptures, 
dogmata,  creeds  and  historical  claims  with  a  view  to  get- 
ting beneath  the  dead  letter  to  the  living  spirit,  was  the 
ministerial  profession.  The  scientific  method  of  studying 
the  Bible  and  Church  history  and  the  critically  historical 
approach  to  dogma  and  ecclesiastical  claims  on  the  part 
of  theologians  preceded  the  escape  from  slavery  to  narrow 
schools  and  methods  in  the  medical  profession  and  the 
sane  analysis  of  constitutions  and  dead  legal  definitions 
which  are  revivifying  political  life  everywhere.  The  legal 
profession  cannot  yet  be  said  to  have  attained  anything 
like  a  resurrection  from  the  death  which  is  inherent  in 
its  method  but  even  here  the  breath  of  life  is  at  the  point 
of  infusion  with  transforming,  miraculous  power.  There 
is  an  increasing  number  of  lawyers  who  realize  that  the 
spirit  and  purpose  behind  the  act  are  of  more  importance 
than  the  act  itself  as  legally  defined. 

That  is  the  whole  nature  of  the  law  of  the  Kingdom. 
It  goes  to  the  roots  of  conduct  rather  than  to  the  super- 
ficial acts.  Righteousness  is  not  primarily  determined 
by  what  a  man  does :  fundamentally  it  depends  upon  what 
he  is. 

To  illustrate  the  point  Jesus  takes  a  few  examples 
at  random:  and  the  first  is  the  case  of  a  brutal  act  like 
murder.  "You  have  heard  that  it  was  said  to  the  ancients, 
'Thou  shalt  do  no  murder  and  whoever  does  murder  shall 
be  in  danger  of  the  judgment,'  but  I  say  to  you  that  who- 
ever is  angry  with  his  brother  shall  be  in  danger  of  the 
judgment." 

That  is  to  say  murder  grows  out  of  the  seed  of  anger 


THE  LAW  OF  THE  HEAVENLY  REALM  53 

in  the  human  heart.  The  spirit  that  leads  one  to  call  his 
brother  names  leads  him  into  more  dangerous  expression 
of  his  feelings.  Destroy  the  seed  and  you  have  destroyed 
all  its  evil  outgrowths  from  murder  down.  The  Heavenly 
righteousness  in  this  case  is  a  kindly  disposition,  not  a 
mere  refraining  from  deeds  to  which  one's  impulses  are 
leaning.  The  impulses  themselves  are  evil  and  do  not 
conform  to  the  law  of  the  Kingdom. 

It  ought  not  to  be  hard  to  grasp  this  truth :  and  yet  we 
should  note  in  passing  a  matter  of  textual  criticism  which 
indicates  how  difficult  it  is  for  a  mind  developed  in  this 
world  to  put  itself  in  the  Heavenly  mood.  For  many 
of  the  ancient  New  Testament  manuscripts  make  the  text 
here  read,  "Whosoever  is  angry  with  his  brother,  without 
a  cause/'  inserting  a  phrase  which  is  obviously  out  of  har- 
mony with  the  whole  passage.  For  in  the  personal  rela- 
tions of  the  Kingdom  anger  has  no  place:  it  is  utterly 
incompatible  with  the  righteousness  which,  as  will  appear 
later,  demands  free,  full,  and  unlimited  forgiveness. 
Nevertheless  this  little  unchristian  phrase  "without  a 
cause,"  which  would  lead  to  all  sorts  of  Pharisaic  quib- 
bling, has  insinuated  itself  even  into  the  King  James  ver- 
sion of  the  New  Testament. 

Anger  can  have  no  spiritually  good  cause  and  it  must 
be  eliminated  from  the  character  of  every  one  who  is  to 
become  a  citizen  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  The  Ameri- 
can colloquialism  which  calls  anger  madness  is,  from  the 
New  Testament  point  of  view,  literally  correct.  As  long 
as  a  man  is  angry  he  actually  is  mad. 

One  of  the  maddest  habits  of  the  angry  man,  if  he  be 
in  moderate  circumstances,  is  that  of  going  to  law;  and 
Jesus,  to  the  intense  delight  of  the  crowd  no  doubt,  pauses 
a  moment  at  this  point  to  ridicule  the  application  of  the 
law  so  far  as  the  ordinary  man  is  concerned. 


54  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

His  main  purpose  which  is  to  advise  against  lawsuits 
on  general  principles  is  serious  enough.  Let  the  righteous 
impulses  against  which,  as  St.  Paul  says,  there  is  no 
law,  rule  in  your  hearts  and  keep  you  from  lawlessness. 
But  if  you  are  liable  in  a  lawsuit  settle  your  liability  at 
once  even  if  you  are  engaged,  when  it  comes  into  your 
mind,  in  the  most  solemn  religious  ceremony — offering  a 
gift  at  the  altar.  "Leave  there  thy  gift"  (the  case  is  the 
most  extreme  possible  in  the  line  of  putting  inner  spirit 
before  outward  ceremony)  "and  go  away,"  for  the  most 
important  thing  is  to  be  reconciled  to  your  brother.  You 
cannot  be  reconciled  to  God  until  you  are  reconciled  to 
your  fellow  man. 

But  the  serious  part  is  followed  by  this: — "Agree  with 
your  opponent  quickly  while  you  are  with  him  on  the 
road  in  order  that  your  opponent  may  not  deliver  you 
over  to  the  judge  and  the  judge  hand  you  over  to  the 
sheriff,  and  you  be  thrown  into  jail.  Believe  me  you  will 
not  come  out  from  there  until  you  have  paid  the  last  cent." 

This  is  as  near  to  cynicism  as  any  recorded  saying  of 
Christ.  It  expresses  not  only  the  feeling  of  the  populace 
everywhere  and  always  with  regard  to  the  hocus-pocus 
of  the  law  but  also  that  of  infinite  goodness  when  it  con- 
templates the  same.  Divine  Justice  incarnate  cannot  help 
showing  up  the  ridiculousness  of  the  administrative  proc- 
esses of  human  law,  with  its  manipulation  of  the  accused 
by  various  officers  and  its  futile  prison  which  never  over- 
looks a  possible  expense  that  the  condemned  can  pay. 
"The  last  cent"  represents  so  much  more  than  is  due  that 
we  can  almost  hear  the  appreciative  laughter  of  the  crowd. 

This  sally  was  directed  toward  only  one  element  of 
legal  futility:  and  yet  He  who  made  it  must  have  appre- 
ciated to  the  full  the  other  legally  enthroned  wrongs  which 
have  not  grown  markedly  less  since  New  Testament  times. 


THE  LAW  OF  THE  HEAVENLY  REALM  55 

He  would  have  felt  as  keenly  as  any  modern  social  rebel 
feels  the  inequity  of  a  legal  system  in  which  wealth  can 
take  appeal  from  court  to  court  but  whose  expensive  tech- 
nicalities are  utterly  out  of  reach  of  the  poor  man.  He 
would  have  seen  little  or  no  exaggeration  in  the  general 
complaint  that  the  very  rich  offenders  always  get  free 
while  the  poor  ones  never  escape. 

In  the  law  of  His  Kingdom  there  are  no  evasive  tech- 
nicalities. The  only  righteousness  of  which  He  takes 
cognizance  is  that  which  flows  from  a  heart  that  is  right: 
it  is  established  in  real  character  and  not  in  legal  ver- 
biage. Legal  verbiage  makes  an  infinite  distinction  be- 
tween a  man  who  kills  another  and  takes  his  purse,  and 
the  man  who  grinds  out  the  lives  of  little  children  in  his 
factory  and  takes  the  major  portion  of  the  product  of  their 
toil.  Both  are  willing  and  anxious  that  other  lives  may 
be  destroyed  in  order  that  they  may  have  more  wealth; 
and  thus  both  are  actuated  by  the  same  heart  motive. 
The  child-murdering  robber,  however,  is  a  somewhat 
weaker  character  than  the  murdering  robber  who  is  de- 
fined as  such  by  human  law,  because  the  latter  has  courage 
to  face  great  danger  while  the  former  is  protected  by  the 
police  and  soldiery,  if  necessary,  in  his  cruel  course. 

Similarly  the  written  law  makes  a  distinction  between 
gambling  for  recreation  and  sport,  and  gambling  in  stocks 
and  securities  for  a  livelihood.  The  former  it  calls  crime, 
the  latter  it  calls  legitimate  business:  both  sins,  however, 
have  the  same  source  and  heart  motive  with  any  other  kind 
of  theft. 

Again  in  the  hideous  political  sin  of  bribery  there  is  a 
legal  distinction  which  is  thoroughly  remote  from  politi- 
cal righteousness.  It  is  crime  to  pay  money  directly  for 
votes  but  even  the  President  of  the  United  States  rewards 
men  who  are  for  him  with  lucrative  offices,  removing  from 


56  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

those  offices  men  who  are  not  for  him.  In  like  manner 
citizens  who  would  never  dream  of  selling  their  votes  will 
vote  for  a  political  party  which  offers  them  some  special 
advantage  like  a  protective  tariff  without  any  reference  to 
the  abstract  morality  or  righteousness  of  that  special  ad- 
vantage. Most  manufacturers  who  vote  for  their  own  pro- 
tection by  tariff  are  bribe  takers,  although  an  illiterate 
one  might  imagine  that  the  general  good  of  the  body 
politic  was  advanced  by  a  high  protective  tariff. 

The  sin  in  anything,  therefore,  cannot  be  taken  away 
by  legal  definitions:  and  here  the  Simple  Gospel  is  far 
more  severe  upon  the  conduct  of  the  exploiter  of  human 
values  than  is  the  more  intellectual  type  of  economic  So- 
cialism. For  the  scholarly  Socialist  to-day  finds  very  little 
fault  with  persons  and  lays  all  the  blame  for  social  in- 
justice upon  the  capitalistic  system  under  which  we  live, 
maintaining  that  the  murderously  avaricious  type  of  busi- 
ness magnate  is  a  necessary  product  of  that  system.  But 
while  not  denying  a  modicum  of  truth  to  that  idea,  the 
Gospel  calls  all  murderous  avarice  sin.  The  man  who  be« 
lieves  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  would  starve  before 
he  would  exploit  the  lives  of  children  to  his  personal  gain 
because  the  man  who  accepts  the  Gospel  contained  therein 
has  a  kindness  in  his  heart  so  expansive  that  the  ex- 
ploiter's gruesome  lust  cannot  find  room  there.  Thus  with 
regard  to  murder  and  all  its  kindred  evils,  whatever  their 
legal  definition  may  be,  the  principle  is  that  the  inner 
spirit  is  the  seat  of  any  righteousness  that  is  lasting  and 
real. 

If  there  could  be  any  conceivable  doubt  in  regard  to 
the  Heavenly  righteousness  after  considering  the  first  ex- 
ample that  Jesus  gave,  the  second  would  make  it  perfectly 
plain  even  to  a  very  limited  intelligence.  "You  have 
heard  that  it  was  said  'Thou  shalt  not  commit  adultery': 


THE  LAW  OF  THE  HEAVENLY  EEALM  57 

but  I  say  to  you  that  every  one  who  looks  at  a  woman  with 
a  feeling  of  lust  has  committed  adultery  with  her  already 
in  his  heart."  Here,  once  more,  it  is  not  the  outward  act 
but  the  inner  spiritual  quality  that  determines  righteous- 
ness. 

Such  righteousness  is  of  supreme  importance.  Even 
the  instinctive  claims  of  the  human  body  are  to  be  ignored 
if  they  conflict  with  it.  The  right  hand  should  be  cut 
off  and  the  right  eye  should  be  plucked  out  before  they 
should  be  allowed  to  lead  one  into  unrighteousness. 

On  the  other  hand  it  is  necessary  to  retain  all  upon 
which  one's  righteousness  depends  whether  one  desires  it 
or  not.  The  fact  that  unpleasant  relations  have  arisen 
between  a  man  and  his  wife  does  not  make  it  right  for 
either  of  them  to  get  a  divorce.  The  family  is  the  norm 
and  center  of  social  righteousness;  and  that  righteousness 
is  always  at  its  lowest  ebb  where  the  family  bond  is  weak- 
est. Polygamy  and  polyandry  have  ever  been  the  marks 
of  degraded  peoples :  and,  from  what  has  just  been  asserted 
with  regard  to  the  principles  of  righteousness,  it  ought 
to  be  clear  that  haphazard  divorce  is  thoroughgoing  polyg- 
amy and  polyandry — absolute  promiscuity.  Americans  es- 
pecially should  realize  that  the  letter  of  the  law  cannot 
change  the  spirit  of  the  thing  which  Jesus  with  His  down- 
right frankness  calls  adultery. 

The  qualifying  phrase  in  this  section  which  allows  di- 
vorce on  the  count  of  unfaithfulness  has  a  little  more 
authority  than  the  obvious  intrusion  in  regard  to  anger 
mentioned  above.  The  deliberate  adulterer  or  adulteress 
breaks  the  family  bond  and  renders  it  non-existent.  And 
yet  there  is  much  to  be  said  on  the  side  of  the  extremists 
who  would  allow  no  cause  whatever  for  divorce.  Their 
strongest  argument,  however,  is  generally  overlooked  even 
by  themselves.  It  is  that  the  principles  of  the  Kingdom 


58  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

of  Heaven  require  absolute  and  unlimited  forgiveness  for 
any  wrong  that  one  may  receive. 

It  may  be  noted  in  passing  that  there  is  no  suggestion 
of  the  sacramental  in  this  view  of  marriage.  The  Sermon 
does  not  deal  with  outward  and  visible  signs:  it  is  con- 
cerned wholly  with  inward  and  spiritual  graces.  It  does 
not  set  forth  marriage  as  an  outward  and  visible  sign  of 
anything:  it  considers  it  a  basic,  spiritual  reality  of  the 
commonwealth  of  God  upon  earth. 

The  essence  of  this  spiritual  reality  is  pure  devotion 
or  devoted  purity — the  pureness  of  heart  of  the  Beatitudes 
which  gives  ability  to  see  God;  and  the  singleness  of 
eye,  to  be  considered  later,  which  enlightens  our  whole 
being.  To  everything  that  helps  in  the  development  of 
this  power  we  must  cleave;  and  everything  that  stands 
in  its  way,  even  if  it  be  the  most  precious  member  of 
the  body,  we  must  destroy. 

This  thought  suggests  one  of  the  most  intricate  theo- 
retical problems  in  regard  to  the  nature  of  righteousness 
that  confronts  the  modern  mind.  It  is  the  problem  of  how 
far  outward  circumstances  control  inward  spirituality — 
the  extent  of  the  power  of  environment  and  heredity  over 
the  development  of  individual  righteousness.  No  sane 
person  can  ignore  the  influence  of  one's  surroundings  and 
heredity  upon  his  character;  but,  to  say  the  least,  it  is 
permissible  to  ask  whether  outward  circumstances  merely 
exert  a  powerful  influence  or  exercise  absolute  control. 

The  latter  view  predominates  so  strongly  in  the  modern 
mind  that,  if  it  be  not  the  true  view,  it  is  one  of  those 
dominant  suggestions  which  hold  the  mind  at  their  mercy 
and  demand  that  everything  shall  be  explained  according 
to  their  hypnotic  spell.  We  have  noted  that  Jesus  did 
not  interpret  life  with  a  mind  dominated  by  the  suggestion 
of  the  power  of  environment;  and  that  He  taught  that 


THE  LAW  OF  THE  HEAVENLY  EEALM  59 

character  should  transform  environment  rather  than  let 
environment  determine  lasting  character. 

He  did  not  deny,  however,  that  environment  has  a  pow- 
erful influence.  He  allowed  for  it  in  His  kindly  attitude 
toward  publicans  and  harlots ;  and  He  takes  it  for  granted 
when  He  speaks  of  the  right  eye  or  the  right  hand 
"offending"  or  as  the  proper  translation  is  "causing  to 
stumble."  While  He  is  not  like  the  surgical  enthusiast 
who,  hypnotized  by  his  subject,  believes  that  all  immor- 
ality is  due  to  physical  defects,  He  sees  that  a  great  deal 
of  immorality  is  intimately  connected  with  such  defects; 
and  He  would  say,  "Remove  the  adenoids  and  other  physi- 
cal irritations  that  produce  immoral  tendencies."  He 
would  almost  certainly  say  to  root  out  the  heredible  evils 
from  the  human  substance — to  make  it  impossible  for 
the  insane,  imbecile  and  venereal  to  reproduce  their  kind. 

A  corollary  to  this  proposition  would  be,  similarly,  to 
root  out  the  things  in  the  body  politic  which  cause  it  to 
stumble.  If  the  acquisitive,  competitive  business  system 
cause  the  nations  to  stumble,  pluck  it  out.  Though  it  be 
the  eye  through  which  all  modern  values  are  perceived 
or  though  it  be  the  strong  right  hand  which  accomplishes 
all  great  modern  undertakings,  it  is  better  for  the  nations 
to  work  out  their  progress  inefficiently  if  it  should  be  nec- 
essary, than  for  them,  having  unrighteous  profits,  interest 
and  rent,  to  be  cast  into  Hell  fire — that  fire  whose  wither- 
ing heat  from  1914  to  1919  blackened  whole  countries 
of  Europe  and  boiled  up  devils  from  the  depths  of  the  sea. 

Nevertheless  the  elimination  of  all  physical  or  material 
causes  for  stumbling  can  never  create  righteousness.  Even 
if  the  original  causes  of  all  evil  were  physical  or  economic 
— a  gratuitous  supposition — the  bad  tendencies  persist  and 
grow  strong  long  after  the  assumed  materialistic  causes 
have  disappeared.  A  profound  economic  change  in  the 


60  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

ways  of  the  world  will  make  a  higher  type  of  social  right- 
eousness possible;  it  will  make  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven 
easier  of  attainment;  hut  it  will  not  eradicate  the  evil 
tendencies  of  envy,  hatred,  malice,  lust,  cruelty  and  a 
thousand  other  vices  which,  no  matter  how  they  have 
arisen,  cannot  be  suppressed  by  physical  or  economic  force. 

This  should  be  remembered  for  example  in  considering 
the  vice  which  has  become  popularly  known  as  the  social 
evil.  That  evil  undoubtedly  has  far-reaching  economic 
complications;  but  it  is  going  to  the  extreme  limit  of  in- 
anity to  try  to  explain  social  vice  economically  or  in  any 
other  way  without  reference  to  the  sexual  impulse,  which 
has  never  been  mastered  without  spiritual  force.  It  is 
inevitable  for  a  fine  woman  like  Miss  Jane  Addams  to 
minimize  the  sexual  instinct  in  her  study  of  commercial- 
ized vice ;  but  for  a  police  lieutenant — or  a  police  commis- 
sioner, investigating  the  same  evil,  to  assume  the  feminine 
sweetness  of  Miss  Addams  is  as  grotesque  a  piece  of  hypoc- 
risy as  could  well  be  imagined.  Economics  will  not  purify 
the  hearts  of  men  nor  will  the  most  just  social  conditions 
take  away  the  sin  of  the  world. 

Indeed  a  more  just  social  order  will  necessarily  increase 
human  responsibility  and  demand  greater  individual  re- 
liability. Stronger  character  will  be  needed  to  make  men 
more  reliable  and  stronger  character  is  developed  by  more 
earnest  religious  fervor.  We  have  seen  that  this  higher 
type  of  character  is  demanded  of  one  who  shall  attain  citi- 
zenship in  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven ;  and  the  supreme  test 
of  such  character  is  given  in  the  next  illustration  that 
Jesus  uses  to  develop  the  point  in  hand: — "Again  you 
have  heard  that  it  was  said  to  the  ancients,  'Thou  shalt  not 
swear  falsely  but  shalt  perform  to  the  Lord  thine  oaths' ; 
but  I  say  to  you  swear  not  at  all." 

Here  we  strike  the  weakest  spot — the  most   self-con- 


THE  LAW  OF  THE  HEAVENLY  EEALM  61 

demnatory  element  in  the  world's  legal  and  religious  sys- 
tem. It  is  a  point  at  which,  although  they  do  not  now 
have  the  inseparable  union  which  hound  them  together 
under  ancient  Pharisaism,  law  and  religion  unite  in  mod- 
ern practice.  For  legal  custom  to-day  calls  upon  religious 
superstition  and  administers  the  oath. 

The  custom  takes  for  granted  very  deliberately  what  the 
Psalmist  said  in  his  haste.  For  if  the  law  did  not  believe 
that  all  men  are  liars,  it  would  not  call  upon  religion,  with 
its  primitive  feeling  in  regard  to  oaths,  to  overcome  the 
natural  untruthfulness  of  men. 

But  the  whole  matter  of  untruthfulness  is  very  illumi- 
nating upon  the  main  point  of  the  passage  under  dis- 
cussion. For  nowhere  is  the  letter  more  generally  given 
preference  to  the  spirit  than  in  speaking  truth.  The  only 
really  truthful  person  is  the  one  who  does  not  intend  to 
deceive :  but  it  frequently  happens  that  a  literal  expression 
of  fact  is  the  most  deceitful  thing  in  the  world :  and  yet 
it  is  common  for  the  most  estimable  people  to  utter  these 
literally  true  deceptions  without  the  slightest  twinge  of 
conscience,  not  realizing  that  a  pure  deception  in  the 
sheep's  clothing  of  literal  accuracy  merely  adds  hypocrisy 
to  dishonesty. 

The  prevalence  of  this  particular  type  of  sin  indicates 
how  far  literalism  has  led  most  of  us  from  spirituality. 
But  the  law  of  the  Kingdom  demands  thoroughgoing  in- 
tegrity :  it  allows  no  chicanery  of  literally  true  deception ; 
and  it  calls  for  the  kind  of  character  whose  word  needs 
no  confirmation  from  the  oath.  The  citizen  of  the  Heav- 
enly Realm  is  a  true  man  and  speaks  the  truth  from  his 
heart.  His  YES  means  YES  and  his  NO  means  NO. 

Obviously  "whatever  is  more  than  these  comes  of  evil." 
For  the  ideal  goodness  is  such  personal  integrity  on  the 
part  of  men  and  women  that  there  is  no  element  of  decep- 


62  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

tion  in  anything  they  say  and  that  all  need  of  confirma- 
tion of  what  they  say  is  superfluous.  The  oath  weakens 
that  integrity:  it  is  based  upon  principles  lower  than  any 
that  hold  in  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  There  is  no  greater 
condemnation  of  our  age  than  the  fact  that  in  it  it  is  a 
rare  distinction  for  a  man  to  be  pointed  out  as  one  whose 
word  is  as  good  as  his  bond.  In  the  Heavenly  Realm  a 
man's  word  is  his  bond.  The  whole  fabric  of  the  polity 
of  God's  Commonwealth  depends  upon  the  integrity  of 
those  who  maintain  that  polity. 

This  integrity  is  necessary  to  human  freedom ;  and  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  at  this  point  is  very  close  to  the 
splendid  passage  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  which  asserts  that 
the  truth  shall  make  us  free.  Recent  American  history, 
in  so  far  as  there  has  been  any  progress  toward  freedom 
in  it,  has  centered  in  the  discovery  of  iniquitous,  secret 
understandings  between  private  business  interests  and 
nominal  representatives  of  the  people,  such  discovery  be- 
ing followed  by  popular  resentment  and  i»y  common  en- 
deavor to  secure  better,  more  honest  and  open  political 
representation.  All  the  statesmen  of  our  time  whose 
names  are  to  be  cherished  in  the  future  have  opposed  the 
"invisible  government" — the  lie-breeding,  dishonest  sys- 
tem which  is  incompatible  with  liberty. 


The  law  of  the  Heavenly  Commonwealth,  then,  as  set 
forth  in  the  examples  discussed  above  deals  with  spiritual 
motives  and  impulses  rather  than  with  rigidly  defined 
acts.  That  which  is  in  the  heart  is  the  crucial  fact,  not 
that  which  develops  through  the  accidents  of  circumstance. 

But  such  accidents  are  put  far  above  spiritual  considera- 
tions by  the  law  of  this  world.  If  in  a  modern  court  a 
man  is  proved  to  have  had  every  intention  to  commit  a 


THE  LAW  OF  THE  HEAVENLY  EEALM  63 

foul  murder,  the  accident  of  his  having  failed  in  the  at- 
tempt is  laid  to  his  credit,  and  he  is  treated  with  more 
leniency  than  a  far  less  condemnable  man  who  kills  an- 
other under  more  or  less  extenuating  circumstances;  In 
the  law  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  the  accident  of  a 
person's  failing  in  his  evil  purpose  does  not  remove  one 
iota  of  his  guilt. 

But  the  way  in  which  guilt  is  treated  in  the  Kingdom 
has  nothing  whatever  in  Common  with  the  world's  treat- 
ment of  it ;  and  while  the  next  chapter  goes  into  that  sub- 
ject at  some  length,  it  is  not  too  early  now  to  point  out 
the  central  principle  of  law  of  the  Kealm. 

That  principle  is  love:  and  from  love  all  the  motives 
of  conduct  in  the  Heavenly  life  radiate.  Love,  for  ex- 
ample, kills  effectively  the  seed  of  anger  out  of  which 
murder  and  its  lesser  but  kindred  evils  grow.  Love  anni- 
hilates the  origins  of  lust  which  lead  to  adultery  for  no 
one  with  real  love  in  his  heart  can  injure  the  best  in 
womanhood.  Love  eliminates  the  untruthful  elements 
which  render  integrity  impossible  for  he  who  loves  his 
fellow  men  has  not  the  least  desire  to  take  advantage  of 
them  through  deception.  It  is  clear,  then,  that  St.  Paul 
was  close  to  the  thought  of  Jesus  when,  enumerating  the 
loftiest  virtues,  he  concluded, — "the  greatest  of  these  is 
love." 


THE  DOCTRINE  REJECTED  OF  MEN 


YOU  HAVE  HEARD  THAT  IT  WAS  SAID,  "EYE  FOR  EYE 
AND  TOOTH  FOR  TOOTH."  BUT  I  SAY  TO  YOU  DO  NOT 
RESIST  EVIL:  BUT  WHOEVER  HITS  YOU  ON  ONE  CHEEK, 
TURN  TO  HIM  THE  OTHER  ALSO:  AND  TO  THE  ONE  WHO 
WANTS  TO  SUE  YOU  AT  LAW  AND  TAKE  YOUR  COAT,  GIVE 
UP  YOUR  OVERCOAT  ALSO.  AND  WHOEVER  COMPELS  YOU 
TO  GO  ONE  MILE  WITH  HIM,  GO  TWO  MILES  WITH  HIM. 
GIVE  TO  THE  ONE  WHO  ASKS  YOU— DO  NOT  EVEN  TURN 
AWAY  FROM  THE  MAN  WHO  WOULD  BORROW  OF  YOU. 

YOU  HAVE  HEARD  THAT  IT  WAS  SAID,  "THOU  SHALT 
LOVE  THY  NEIGHBOR  AND  HATE  THINE  ENEMY":  BUT  I 
SAY  TO  YOU,  LOVE  YOUR  ENEMIES,  AND  PRAY  FOR  THOSE 
WHO  PERSECUTE  YOU,  IN  ORDER  THAT  YOU  MAY  BE  SONS 
OF  YOUR  FATHER  IN  HEAVEN.  FOR  HE  MAKES  HIS  SUN 
TO  RISE  UPON  THE  EVIL  AND  THE  GOOD,  AND  CAUSES 
RAIN  TO  FALL  ON  THE  RIGHTEOUS  AND  THE  UNRIGHT- 
EOUS. FOR  IF  YOU  LOVE  ONLY  THOSE  WHO  LOVE  YOU 
WHAT  PAY  DO  YOU  HAVE?  DO  NOT  EVEN  THE  TAX-COL- 
LECTORS DO  THE  SAME  THING?  AND  IF  YOU  GREET  ONLY 
YOUR  BROTHERS  WHAT  DO  YOU  DO  ESPECIALLY?  DO  NOT 
EVEN  THE  GENTILES  DO  THE  SAME  THING?  THEREFORE 
BE  YOU  PERFECT  JUST  AS  YOUR  HEAVENLY  FATHER  IS 
PERFECT. 

(Matthew   V:    38-48.) 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   DOCTRINE   REJECTED   OF   MEN 

THE  best  known  test  of  orthodoxy  is  the  Vincentian 
Kule:—  "That  should  be  held  for  Catholic  truth 
which  has  been  believed  everywhere,  always,  and 
by  all."  To  be  sure  practically  nothing  in  the  course 
of  the  Church's  life  has  conformed  to  this  rule  and  yet 
there  is  one  belief  which  throughout  the  Christian  centu- 
ries has  been  held  almost  everywhere,  almost  always,  and 
by  almost  all.  That  is  that  the  words  of  Jesus  in  the 
passage  to  which  we  have  now  come  need  not  be  accepted 
at  their  face  value.  The  few  individual  believers  like 
Tolstoi  and  the  few  peculiar  sects  like  the  Quakers  who 
give  the  doctrine  of  non-resistance  the  same  central  place 
in  their  religious  systems  which  it  had  in  the  doctrine  and 
in  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ  are  not  a  corporal's  guard  in 
comparison  with  the  vast  hordes  of  nominal  Christians 
who  have  considered  and  who  still  consider  such  individual 
believers  and  peculiar  sects  ridiculous:  and  those  have 
been  rare  times  in  the  experience  of  the  Church,  if  there 
have  been  any  such  times,  when  it  was  not  possible  for 
the  clergy  to  preach  against  the  spirit  of  non-resistance 
which  the  Founder  of  the  Church  here  demands  on  the 
ground  that  is  an  attribute  of  the  heavenly  Father. 

Nowhere  is  the  opposition  to  this  particular  doctrine 
more  pronounced  than  in  America:  and  we  shall  not  go 
far  astray  in  seeking  the  typical  American  point  of  view 
in  that  of  the  late  President  Roosevelt.  He  was  fre- 
quently commended  as  an  example  of  right  feeling  to  the 

«7 


68  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

popular  admiration  even  by  Christian  preachers  during  his 
lifetime,  and  at  the  time  of  his  death  thousands  of 
Churches  throughout  the  United  States  held  services  in 
his  memory:  and  yet  he  was  frankly  and  unalterably 
opposed  to  the  doctrine  of  Jesus  as  here  set  forth.  None 
of  his  numerous  facile  terms  of  derision  delighted  his 
worshippers  more  than  that  which  he  would  have  applied 
to  any  one  who  lived  according  to  the  closing  verses  of 
the  Fifth  chapter  of  the  Gospel  of  St.  Matthew;  such  a 
man  to  him  would  have  been  a  "molly coddle."  He  would 
have  had  unbounded  contempt  for  one  who  would  turn  the 
other  cheek:  he  always  taught  that  a  man  should  resent 
an  insult  even  to  the  point  of  physical  violence.  His 
rugged,  manly  vigor  was  upheld  everywhere  as  the  way 
of  life  for  American  youth. 

On  the  other  hand  those  very  few  Christian  ministers 
who  in  the  last  months  of  Mr.  Roosevelt's  life,  at  the  time 
of  the  nation's  entry  into  the  great  war,  preached  what 
Jesus  said  with  regard  to  strife  were  branded  by  that 
statesman  and  considered  by  his  admirers  as  cowards, 
scoundrels  and  traitors.  This  was  not  merely  the  attitude 
of  those  outside  the  Church:  it  represented  the  mood  of 
the  great  body  of  nominal  Christians  of  almost  every  sect. 
Even  in  the  large-minded  American  Episcopal  Church 
which  has,  perhaps,  been  hospitable  to  as  wide  a  range 
of  religious  opinion  as  has  any  Church  that  has  yet  arisen, 
there  was  found  no  room  for  this  part  of  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount;  and  one  of  her  best  bishops  was  asked  to  re- 
sign because  he  insisted  on  preaching  the  obvious  meaning 
of  Jesus. 

But  wholesale  rejection  of  part  of  the  Saviour's  teach- 
ings is  not  peculiar  to  America.  It  has  characterized 
all  so-called  Christian  lands.  Ruskin  need  not  have  iso- 
lated England  when  he  said: — "I  know  no  previous  in- 


THE  DOCTRINE  REJECTED  OF  MEN       69 

stance  in  history  of  a  nation's  establishing  a  systematic 
disobedience  to  the  first  principles  of  its  professed  re- 
ligion." 

Therefore  it  would  seem  that  Jesus  in  preaching  non- 
resistance  was  going  contrary  to  strongly  entrenched,  hu- 
man instincts.  He  attacks  those  instincts,  however,  at 
what  is,  from  an  intellectual  standpoint,  their  weakest 
spot.  In  treating  the  whole  subject  of  our  opposition  to 
wrong  He  touches  first  a  primitive  animal  instinct  which 
although  almost  universal  in  extent  has  not  a  vestige  of 
justification  in  any  sane  thought — the  impulse  to  strike 
back,  the  scratching,  biting,  kicking  reflex  action  of  the 
nervous  system  which  sometimes  does  not  rise  to  the  level 
of  even  the  lowest  brain  action.  This,  in  our  idiotic  ter- 
minology, we  call  "getting  even"  with  another  or  "taking 
satisfaction  out  of"  him.  "Revenge  is  sweet"  runs  the 
old  proverb;  and  the  average  man,  to  put  it  mildly,  re- 
tains a  little  of  that  primordial  feeling;  but  Jesus  allows 
no  place  for  revenge  in  the  Heavenly  Realm. 

This  attitude  of  the  Saviour  is  in  especially  marked 
contrast  to  the  ancient  prejudices  of  His  own  people.  For 
they  felt,  beyond  a  doubt,  that  God  Himself  rejoiced  in 
the  spirit  of  revenge.  But  the  obvious  fact  that  He  lets 
the  rain  and  the  sunlight — calamity  and  good  fortune — 
fall  equally  on  the  just  and  the  unjust  is,  in  Christ's 
reasoning,  conclusive  proof  that  the  Divine  Nature  has 
in  it  no  place  for  such  evil. 

This  fact,  we  may  well  note  in  passing,  makes  it  im- 
possible to  associate  the  mind  of  Christ  with  any  doctrine 
of  the  Atonement  that  presupposes  an  angry  God.  That 
which  keeps  us  apart  from  God  is  not  His  anger  but  our 
choice  of  ways  that  lead  us  from  rather  than  to  Him. 
His  attitude  toward  His  erring  children  is  illustrated  un- 
mistakably in  the  attitude  of  the  father  in  the  parable  of 


70  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

the  Prodigal  Son  who,  when  the  wayward  son  was  yet  a 
great  way  off,  saw  him  and  ran  and  fell  on  his  neck  and 
kissed  him.  And  although  this  parable  is  peculiar  to 
St.  Luke's  Gospel,  the  passage  under  consideration  asserts 
that  the  nature  of  God  is  precisely  as  this  parable  would 
have  us  understand  it. 

But  if  this  be  a  true  interpretation  of  the  Divine  Nature, 
primitive  law  is  not  divine.  For  practically  all  primitive 
law  has  provisions  similar  to  those  of  Exodus,  Leviticus, 
and  Deuteronomy  making  it  a  principle  of  resistance  to 
evil  that  a  life  shall  be  given  for  a  life,  an  eye  for  an 
eye,  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth — a  principle  which  to  the 
nai've,  barbaric  consciousness  of  the  law  givers  of  infant 
nations  seems  to  contain  ideal  justice. 

Perhaps  it  is  due  to  its  very  primitiveness  that  this 
absurd  notion  of  justice  persists  so  tenaciously  in  the 
average  mind.  It  certainly  is  one  of  the  most  deeply 
imbedded  concepts  in  human  thought,  and  he  is  a  very 
abnormal  being  who  in  the  first  flush  of  indignation,  on 
hearing  of  some  atrocity,  does  not  say  of  its  perpetrator, — 
"He  ought  to  be  shot" ;  or  who  does  not  suggest  some  cruel 
type  of  retribution  which  to  unthinking  indignation  seems 
to  fit  the  case. 

The  same  primeval  instinct  always  crops  up  plenteously 
whenever  there  is  an  effort  to  abolish  capital  punishment 
from  the  penal  system  of  a  state.  The  writer  has  actually 
heard,  in  Arizona,  both  laymen  and  ministers  of  an  un- 
cultivated type  publicly  oppose  the  abolition  of  this  kind 
of  punishment  on  the  ground  that  the  Bible  says,  "An 
eye  for  an  eye  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth." 

This  attitude,  says  Jesus,  is  fundamentally  wrong. 
"You  have  heard  that  it  was  said,  'Eye  for  eye  and  tooth 
for  tooth,'  but  I  say  to  you,  do  not  resist  evil."  It  is  a 
thoroughly  bad  and  cruel  instinct  which  for  any  reason 


whatever  can  take  satisfaction  in  seeing  human  beings 
suffer.  The  one  who  in  the  first  instance  puts  out  the 
eye  or  knocks  out  the  tooth  of  another  commits  the  wrong 
in  order  to  satisfy  an  evil  passion  in  his  heart;  but  the 
one  who  seeks  a  retribution  in  the  same  kind  desires  to 
gratify  a  like  passion.  He  attempts  to  establish  the  right 
by  a  double  negation  of  the  right. 

Partly  because  of  such  venerable  nonsense  the  penal 
system  of  mankind  has  been  one  of  the  most  dismal  fail- 
ures of  all  human  efforts.  Nothing  has  done  more  to  in- 
tensify crime  in  society  than  society's  method  of  punishing 
criminals.  Even  since  the  Crucifixion  civil  courts  have 
not  made  (until  this  generation)  the  slightest  endeavor 
to  conform  to  the  teaching  of  Jesus  in  this  matter:  and, 
so  far  from  setting  a  good  example,  Church  courts  have 
been  not  only  anti-Christian  but  absolutely  inhuman. 

Men  in  our  day  have  been  excommunicated  for  not 
believing  that  Adam  was  a  real  person.  In  earlier  times 
they  were  burned  at  the  stake  for  saying  that  Jesus  was 
speaking  figuratively  when  He  called  the  bread  and  wine 
of  the  Last  Supper  His  Body  and  Blood.  But  no  one  has 
ever  been  even  mildly  rebuked  for  denying  in  toto  the 
doctrine  of  non-resistance  which,  as  the  K"ew  Testament 
gives  it,  allows  of  but  one  possible  interpretation. 

So  little  has  this  doctrine  been  regarded  hitherto  that 
any  one  who  defended  it  in  the  completeness  which  it 
attains  in  the  words  of  Christ  would  hardly  be  considered 
sane  by  the  average  Christian.  Moreover  numerous  appar- 
ently valid  objections  can  be  raised  against  the  acceptance 
of  the  doctrine  the  commonest  of  which  are  suggested  by 
the  questions:  How  can  children  be  reared?  How  can 
crime  be  suppressed  ?  How  can  the  sanctity  of  the  home 
be  defended  ?  And  how  can  national  existence  be  secure 
without  the  use  of  physical  force? 


72  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

And  yet  these  very  questions  recall  the  fact  that  a  more 
Christlike  spirit  is  now  showing  itself  in  civilization.  In 
the  matter  of  child  training,  for  example,  a  great  many 
rather  dull  persons  have  discovered  that  some  children 
can  be  spared  the  rod  without  being  spoiled;  and  that  an 
unstinted  use  of  the  rod  is  very  likely  to  spoil  all  that  is 
finest  even  in  a  domestic  animal.  Those  who  have  been 
most  harshly  treated  in  childhood  tend  to  overstep  all 
bounds  when  the  restraints  of  childhood  are  removed.  In 
fact  the  whole  educational  process  is  showing  a  decided 
trend  in  the  direction  of  drawing  children  to  knowledge 
through  love  of  their  work  rather  than  forcing  them 
through  fear  of  beatings. 

But  in  dealing  with  criminals  as  well  as  with  children 
the  more  modern  methods  show  some  little  advance  to- 
ward the  spirit  of  Christ.  Primitive  systems,  as  we  have 
just  noted,  begin  with  the  principle  that  a  wrong  can  be 
righted  by  a  similar  wrong.  Among  the  many  supersti- 
tions of  primeval  human  consciousness  there  is  never  want- 
ing an  idea  of  justice  which  views  the  balancing  of  wrong 
with  wrong  as  conforming  to  the  eternal  fitness  of  things. 
The  idea  is  perfectly  represented  by  the  conventional  fig- 
ure of  justice,  blindfold,  holding  in  one  hand  the  scales 
and  in  the  other  the  sword  of  brutal  force.  The  blindfold 
is  supposed  to  stand  for  freedom  from  improper  influ- 
ences, but  it  more  truly  represents  utter  lack  of  that  in- 
sight which  is  the  essential  principle  of  the  Heavenly 
justice. 

But  justice  in  its  development  among  any  people  usu- 
ally goes  into  a  second  stage  which  is  even  worse  morally 
than  this  first  stage  of  emphasis  upon  retribution.  In 
the  second  stage  prevention  of  crime  is  the  exclusive  mo- 
tive; and,  so  far  from  being  satisfied  with  eye  for  eye 
or  tooth  for  tooth,  it  demands  a  life  for  almost  any  offense 


THE  DOCTRINE  REJECTED  OF  MEN       73 

that  can  be  committed.  Not  only  he  who  shoots  the  king's 
deer  but  also  he  who  steals  the  maid's  kerchief  must  pay 
for  his  crime  with  his  life;  and  the  death  penalty  is  ex- 
pected to  become  an  effective  preventative  for  all  crime. 

The  idea  is  in  thorough  agreement  with  the  principle, 
taken  for  granted  in  all  modern  law,  that  property  is  more 
precious  than  persons.  No  court  to-day,  for  instance,  even 
if  it  so  desired  would  have  any  right  legally  so  much 
as  to  rebuke  the  officers  of  a  corporation  if  they  should 
order  one  of  their  gunmen  to  shoot  a  poor  widow,  tres- 
passing on  their  premises  in  order  to  gather  a  few  scattered 
pieces  of  coal.  We  are  not  yet  so  far  from  a  barbarous 
legalism  that  the  average  man  among  us  feels  the  slightest 
horror  at  the  death  of  a  trespasser  incurred  in  his  tres- 
passing. 

But  there  is  no  better  proof  of  the  common  understand- 
ing in  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  that  property  is  above  man- 
hood than  that  which  was  brought  out  in  the  triumph  of 
the  conscription  principle  during  the  late  war.  The  na- 
tions had  very  little  difficulty  in  making  the  conscription 
of  men  for  military  service  universal;  but  any  Anglo- 
Saxon  nation  that  had  tried  to  commandeer  property,  with- 
out full  compensation,  would  have  had  a  revolution.  For 
taking  over  the  railroads  the  American  Government  had 
to  pay  liberally  besides  guaranteeing  earnings  on  proper- 
ties some  of  which  never  had  earned  anything  before. 

Therefore  the  second  phase  of  the  development  of  crim- 
inal procedure  still  has  strong  hold  upon  us.  We  instinc- 
tively feel  that  things  are  more  sacred  than  persons:  and 
we  punish  misdeeds  in  regard  to  things  by  the  utmost 
exertion  of  cruel,  brutal  force  upon  persons.  But  the 
larger  part  of  our  present-day  legal  feeling  and  procedure 
has  reached  a  third  stage — that  of  endeavoring  to  reform 
the  criminal  by  punishments  severe  enough  to  make  him 


74  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

regret  his  misconduct  and,  because  of  fear,  to  resolve  to 
change  his  way  of  life.  The  underlying  theory  of  this 
method  has  been  held  for  a  long  time  by  men  who  con- 
sider themselves  absolutely  practical;  but  these  men  pre- 
sent one  of  those  cases  (not  so  common  as  so-called  prac- 
tical men  suppose)  in  which  theory  does  not  work  out  in 
practice.  As  a  means  of  reformation  the  penal  system 
maintained  by  our  civilization  for  generations  has  made 
the  most  sorry  failure  of  all  human  undertakings.  Our 
reformatories  have  done  anything  but  reform,  and  by  far 
the  larger  number  of  our  imprisoned  criminals  are  under 
sentence  for  the  second,  third,  or  fourth  times,  in  almost 
all  cases  becoming  worse  and  more  dangerous  with  each 
imprisonment. 

However,  there  is  a  new  spirit  abroad  in  criminal  pro- 
cedure; and  that  spirit  is  far  more  akin  to  the  spirit  of 
Christ.  It  is  having  a  hard  struggle  to  establish  itself; 
and  the  large,  Mammon-worshipping,  commercial  interests 
are  very  much  against  it.  Nevertheless  it  is  the  only 
approach  to  a  sane  method  in  dealing  with  criminals  that 
has  yet  been  put  into  practice.  Instead  of  making  prisons 
as  they  have  been  hitherto  universities  of  crime  where, 
because  of  his  associations  and  as  a  reaction  against  his 
treatment,  the  imprisoned  man  becomes  worse  than  when 
he  entered,  it  gives  the  criminal  every  encouragement  to 
reform.  The  first  offense  is  not  severely  punished  and 
the  offender  is  generally  released  on  parole,  being  given 
a  chance  to  demonstrate  that  he  can  be  trusted :  and  after 
a  criminal  is  imprisoned,  he  is  given  as  much  liberty  and 
as  much  incentive  to  trustworthiness  as  can  safely  be 
afforded.  It  is  a  method  that  has  proved  eminently  suc- 
cessful wherever  it  has  been  tried  by  competent  officers. 

There  are,  to  be  sure,  other  quite  different  theories 
with  regard  to  the  processes  of  criminal  law;  and  many 


THE  DOCTKINE  KEJECTED  OF  MEN      Y5 

keen  students  of  the  problem  believe  that  practical  cer- 
tainty of  detection  and  punishment  will  eliminate  the 
greater  amount  of  crime.  If  the  criminal  knew  that  he  was 
almost  sure  to  be  caught  and  severely  punished,  these  stu- 
dents say,  he  would  not  commit  the  crime. 

There  is  probably  much  to  be  said  in  favor  of  this  notion 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  detection  never  can  be  made 
certain,  if  for  no  other  reason,  because  of  the  psychological 
law  that  every  police  force  will  develop  in  its  number 
some  who  are  going  to  share  the  criminality  of  those 
against  whom  they  are  supposed  to  guard.  But  even  if 
detection  and  punishment  became  practically  certain, 
crime  would  not  necessarily  be  eliminated:  there  was  a 
time  when  protracted  indebtedness  was  a  crime  punishable 
by  imprisonment:  the  crime  was  one  that  could  not  pos- 
sibly escape  detection;  and  yet  the  average  indebtedness 
has  decreased  since  the  removal  of  the  harsh  penalties 
which  it  formerly  involved. 

No  doubt  it  can  be  said  that  the  debtors  always  felt  that 
there  was  a  chance  of  escaping  their  indebtedness;  but 
there  will  always  be  a  chance  of  escape  for  any  criminal. 
It  is  certain,  moreover,  that  criminals  will  often  run  the 
most  tremendous  risks.  They  will  stake  their  lives  on  a 
very  unequal  chance;  and  it  is  said  that  when  men  were 
hanged  for  theft  in  England  pickpockets  usually  operated 
in  the  crowd  watching  the  hanging. 

Therefore  there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  diminish- 
ing forceful  resistance  to  crime  does  not  increase  crime. 
The  weight  of  modern  experience  in  correction  leans  heav- 
ily to  the  side  advocated  by  Jesus.  Moreover,  slow  and 
discouraging  as  it  may  have  been,  there  has  been  some 
progress  toward  Christian  non-resistance  in  other  lines.  It 
used  to  be  considered  necessary  for  a  "gentleman"  to  fight 
to  the  death  in  order  to  avenge  an  insult;  and  in  some 


Y6  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

countries  duelling  still  persists  with  considerable  vigor. 
But  there  has  been  such  a  general  progress  in  civilization 
that  real  gentlemen  cannot  any  longer  resist  insults  with 
force.  Since  no  gentleman  can  offer  an  insult,  forcible 
resistance  to  an  insult  cannot  come  within  the  scope  of 
gentlemanly  activities.  Non-resistance  has  utterly  de- 
stroyed the  importance  of  the  insult  among  all  the  more 
refined  persons.  It  will  be  but  another  step  in  civilization 
to  remove  the  influence  of  the  insult  in  international  re- 
lations. If  civilization  is  to  progress  at  all  it  cannot  be 
long  before  nations  that  are  willing  to  fight  over  an  insult 
will  be  realized  to  be  just  as  degraded  as  ruffians  in  the 
back  alleys,  fighting  for  the  same  cause.  The  satisfaction 
derived  from  striking  back  is  just  as  much  due  to  an 
animal — brutal — passion  as  is  the  satisfaction  of  any  other 
depraved  lust  of  the  flesh. 

But  the  main  point  here  involved  goes  even  deeper  than 
this.  It  is,  in  fact,  the  most  important  point  in  the 
doctrine  of  Christ.  For  here  again  we  are  at  the 
central  thought  of  Jesus: — "He  who  exalteth  himself 
shall  be  abased  and  he  who  humbleth  himself  shall  be 
exalted." 

Thus  it  is  usually  undue  self-exaltation  in  the  case 
either  of  personal  or  of  national  feelings  which  exaggerates 
insults  to  the  point  of  fighting  to  avenge  them:  and  there 
is  an  intimate  spiritual  connection  between  this  type  of 
self-aggrandizement  and  the  even  more  revolting  type  of 
the  same  vice  which  leads  one  to  attempt  to  exalt  himself 
through  the  accretion  of  worldly  possessions.  As  far  as 
nations  are  concerned  the  anti-peace  spirit  is  always  most 
earnestly  fostered  by  these  two  types  of  self-exaltation 
working  in  harmony.  The  Jingo  whose  highest  ideal  of 
patriotism  is  belligerent  national  self-assertion  and  the 
war  profiteer  whose  financial  interests  make  it  comfortable 


THE  DOCTRINE  REJECTED  OF  MEN      77 

for  him  to  see  nothing  but  good  in  the  ghastly  discipline 
of  war  naturally  work  together  for  evil. 

The  chief  motive  of  all  such  evil  is  the  desire  for  superi- 
ority. All  quarrels  and  contests  are  carried  on  by  those 
who  wish  to  prove  themselves  superior  to  others.  The 
popular  conception  of  business  as  war  is  a  true  one  be- 
cause that  lust  for  undue  accumulation  of  riches,  which 
has  to  be  considered  more  at  length  further  on,  is  but 
another  manifestation  of  the  consuming  desire  for  superi- 
ority which  leads  to  all  fighting. 

This  desire  can  be  effectively  crushed  only  by  the 
method  of  Christ.  For  the  fighter's  passion  cannot  be  sated 
where  there  is  no  real  fighting:  and  non-resistance  by  re- 
fusing to  offer  a,  fight  defeats  the  fighter's  purpose.  Ulti- 
mately even  the  feeling  of  superiority  which  comes  with 
the  accumulation  of  worldly  possessions  must  diminish 
in  the  presence  of  those  who  are  themselves  superior  to 
such  possessions.  There  is  no  glory,  surely,  in  winning 
the  coat  of  one  who  is  willing  to  give  you  his  cloak  also: 
and,  in  New  Testament  times,  it  would  certainly  have 
lessened  the  Roman's  feeling  of  superiority  if  after  he 
had  exacted  his  legally  established  privilege  of  compelling 
a  man  of  a  subject  race  to  accompany  him  one  mile  that 
same  man  should,  of  his  own  accord,  offer  to  accompany 
him  another  mile. 

But,  as  has  just  been  noted,  the  Saviour's  injunctions 
to  perform  such  unwonted  acts  as  these  have  their  primary 
reason  in  His  fundamental  doctrine  which  maintains  that 
"he  who  findeth  his  life  shall  lose  it  and  he  who  loseth 
his  life  shall  find  it."  This  principle  has  been  discussed 
already  but  in  dealing  with  the  words  of  Jesus  we  have 
to  come  back  to  it  again  and  again  for  it  is  the  heart  and 
soul  of  all  His  living  message.  That  which  truly  exalts 
a  person,  we  cannot  too  often  remind  ourselves,  is  not  the 


78  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

self-exaltation  which  makes  all  around  him  minister  to 
his  wants  but  that  self-abasement  which  ministers,  as  much 
as  in  him  lies,  to  the  wants  of  others:  and  here  the  doc- 
trine becomes  unlimited  in  its  scope,  for  this  self-denying 
service  must  extend  even  beyond  those  who  wish  one  no 
good  to  his  bitter  enemies.  "I  say  to  you,  Love  your 
enemies,  bless  those  who  curse  you,  do  good  to  those  who 
hate  you,  and  pray  for  those  who  despitefully  use  you  and 
persecute  you." 

This  is  the  eternal  wisdom;  and  it  is  obvious  that,  if 
one  is  exalted  through  the  service  that  he  renders,  the 
more  far-reaching  the  service,  the  greater  is  the  exaltation 
of  him  who  renders  that  service.  One  who  lovingly  serves 
his  enemies  is  necessarily  a  more  exalted  character  than 
one  who  does  not. 

The  ethical  theory  involved  in  such  practice  is  the  only 
sound  one.  We  have  already  found  that  replying  to  evil 
with  evil  merely  intensifies  evil.  Two  wrongs  cannot  make 
a  right:  and  so  the  only  way  in  which  evil  can  be  de- 
stroyed is  through  an  excess  of  good.  The  only  conceivable 
constructive  righteousness  is  to  return  good  for  evil. 

This  type  of  righteousness  Jesus  finds  to  be  fundamen- 
tally and  obviously  characteristic  of  His  Heavenly  Father. 
"He  makes  His  sun  to  rise  on  the  evil  and  the  good,  and 
causes  rain  to  fall  on  the  righteous  and  the  unrighteous." 

This  principle  is  shown  forth  not  only  in  numerous 
words  from  the  lips  of  Christ  but  also  in  His  entire  life. 
He  who  preached  against  distinctions  in  dress  and  in  title 
dressed  simply  and  called  Himself  the  Son  of  Man.  If 
He  were  the  Incarnation  of  the  Word  of  God — God's 
human  expression  of  Himself — it  would  be  impossible  to 
imagine  a  more  perfect  way  in  which  Deity  could  reveal 
itself  to  men  than  in  this  supreme  personal  exaltation 
through  complete  humility.  The  more  divine  we  think 


THE  DOCTRINE  REJECTED  OF  MEN      79 

the  nature  of  Jesus  to  be,  the  more  profound  become  the 
depths  into  which  the  Cross  would  show  that  God  is  willing 
to  descend  in  order  to  reconcile  us  unto  Himself  in  love. 
Far  more  powerful  than  all  the  physical  force  in  the  uni- 
verse is  that  influence  of  which  the  Saviour  is  conscious 
when  He  says,  in  the  Fourth  Gospel, — "I,  if  I  be  lifted 
up  from  the  earth,  will  draw  all  men  unto  Myself." 

But  whatever  we  see  or  fail  to  see  in  the  nature  of 
Jesus,  we  can  hardly  fail  to  discover  in  His  earthly  life 
a  thoroughgoing  illustration  of  the  non-resistance  that  He 
taught — the  self-abasement  which  is  the  only  real  exalta- 
tion. The  entire  course  of  that  lowly  career  from  the 
manger  which  is  His  throne  to  the  Cross  which  is  His 
judgment  seat  is  in  perfect  harmony  with  what  the  prophet 
of  old  realized  as  to  the  life  which  is  acceptable  to  God, 
when  he  said : — "He  shall  not  cry,  nor  lift  up,  nor  cause 
his  voice  to  be  heard  in  the  street.  A  bruised  reed  he 
shall  not  break  and  the  dimly  burning  wick  he  shall  not 
quench." 

Naturally  this  spirit  prevailed  at  the  supreme  crisis  of 
His  life.  If  ever  one  nation  had  just  cause  to  fight 
against  another,  Israel  had  full  cause  against  Rome;  and 
either  Jesus  refused  to  fight  because  He  lacked  the  courage 
of  Albert,  King  of  the  Belgians,  in  a  somewhat  similar 
crisis  or  else  He  chose  a  better  course.  For  it  will  not 
do  to  say  that  He  saw  great  odds  against  Him  and  refused 
to  accept  those  odds  because  great  patriotic  souls  never 
count  the  costs  in  crises  like  this.  The  few  Greeks  before 
the  vast  Persian  hordes  at  Thermopylae  did  not  weigh 
their  chances;  nor  did  the  tiny  British  fleet  when  the 
mighty  Spanish  Armada  came ;  nor  did  the  French  when, 
according  to  military  science,  they  had  no  chances  of  suc- 
cess before  Verdun  and  at  the  Marne. 

That  Jesus  had  full  courage  to  act  in  a  similar  way 


80  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

His  going  to  the  Cross  makes  evident:  and  it  was  not 
through  worldly  wisdom  but  through  divine  insight  that 
He  took  the  more  excellent  way.  This  way  of  the  Cross 
keeps  Christian  non-resistance — true  pacifism — from  being 
the  weak,  trivial,  unmanly  spirit  that  is  expressed  by  some 
types  of  pacifism. 

For  Christian  doctrine  never  loses  sight  of  the  fact  that 
the  powers  of  men  are  developed  by  hard  exercise — that 
worthy  attainment  must  ever  be  the  result  of  toil  and 
strain.  But  this  fact  is  practically  ignored  by  many  other- 
wise excellent  plans  for  social  advance.  Mention  is  made 
elsewhere  in  these  pages  of  the  importance  of  proper  cloth- 
ing and  food,  but  the  main  reason  for  giving  right  care  to 
the  body  is  that  it  may  have  all  the  more  strength  to 
exert  in  courageous,  self-sacrificing  service. 

Jesus,  then,  is  wholly  on  the  side  of  manly  exertion. 
Many  of  those  who  follow  Him  in  this  day  and  generation 
will  almost  inevitably  go  to  their  crucifixions  because  the 
world  persists  in  its  everlasting  refusal  to  walk  in  the 
light.  Men  may  have  to  choose  to  be  shot  rather  than 
lift  up  their  hands  against  their  fellows:  and  it  would 
be  to  the  eternal  shame  of  Christendom  if  the  Hindoo 
followers  of  Ghandi  should  be  the  first  to  die  rather  than 
shed  the  blood  of  their  enemies.  But  although  some  lives 
may  be  sacrificed  in  this  kind  of  non-resistance  it  is  cer- 
tain that  not  nearly  so  many  can  be  lost  in  this  way  as 
have  been  lost  in  the  silly  round  of  striking  back  or  as 
must  continue  to  be  lost,  to  no  lasting  purpose,  unless  a 
way  out  of  the  futile,  meaningless  repetition  of  wars  is  dis- 
covered. 

It  is  this  futility  of  war  rather  than  its  splendid  hero- 
ism that  Jesus  would  destroy.  The  energy,  courage,  and 
sacrifice  now  wasted  in  unending,  destructive  contests  will, 
when  Christ's  principles  become  effective,  be  devoted  to 


THE  DOCTRINE  REJECTED  OF  MEN       81 

constructive  purposes.  For  example  the  physician  discov- 
ering a  new,  vital  fact  may,  as  happened  when  the  yellow 
fever  germ  was  being  studied,  deliberately  lay  down  his 
life  for  others.  But  there  is  an  unlimited  number  of 
ways  in  which  the  citizens  of  the  Kingdom  will  use  their 
courageous  powers  to  build  up  life  and  enlarge  intelli- 
gence. 

This  latter  achievement  alone  would  put  the  Christian 
spirit  infinitely  above  the  spirit  of  war.  For  even  if 
seers  like  Romain  Rolland  did  not  use  their  consummate 
genius  to  analyze  the  intellectual  depravity  of  the  war 
spirit,  any  person  with  the  slightest  cultural  advantages 
who  lived  through  the  war  knows  that  when  the  guns 
of  the  nations  begin  to  fire  the  finer  mental  processes  of 
the  nations  cease  to  function. 

But  the  courageous,  sacrificing  effort  of  the  true  citizen 
of  the  Heavenly  Realm  creates  larger  values  in  all  depart- 
ments of  life.  It  is  big  enough  to  take  in  the  welfare  of 
its  opponents:  it  loves  its  enemies  and  in  virtue  of  that 
love  it  knows  what  true  conquest  means.  It  has  the  spirit 
of  Him  who  makes  His  sun  to  rise  upon  the  evil  and  the 
good  and  causes  it  to  rain  on  the  righteous  and  the  un- 
righteous. 

This  is  the  perfection  of  the  Heavenly  Father  which 
Jesus  requires  of  those  who  would  enter  the  Kingdom. 
His  demands  are  not  satisfied  by  an  ordinary  goodness : — 
"For  if  you  love  those  who  love  you  what  reward  have 
you  ?  Do  not  even  the  tax-gatherers  do  the  same  thing  ? 
And  if  you  greet  only  your  brothers,  what  do  you  do  espe- 
cially? Do  not  the  gentiles  do  the  same  thing?  There- 
fore be  you  perfect  even  as  your  Heavenly  Father  is 
perfect." 

Such  perfection  cannot  be  forced  upon  an  individual 
person.  One  can  attain  to  it  only  by  the  free  development 


82  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

of  the  good  impulses  within  him.  All  the  great  achieve- 
ments of  the  human  genius  have  been  accomplished  not 
by  those  who  were  forced  to  their  work  but  by  those  who 
so  loved  their  occupation  that  nothing  really  satisfied  the 
deep  cravings  of  their  nature  except  being  busied  in  that 
occupation.  All  the  great  books,  paintings,  statues,  musical 
compositions,  and  architectural  designs  were  achieved  by 
those  who  lost  themselves  in  their  labors  and  worked  pri- 
marily for  the  joy  that  was  in  the  work. 

This  fact  naturally  brings  up  the  subject  of  reward  for 
labor  and  that  is  the  subject  of  the  next  section  of  the 
Sermon,  which  will  demand  a  chapter  by  itself. 


THE  REWAKD  IN  HEAVEN 


BE  CAREFUL  NOT  TO  DO  YOUR  RIGHTEOUSNESS  IN  THE 
PRESENCE  OF  MEN  IN  ORDER  TO  BE  OBSERVED  BY  THEM. 
OTHERWISE  YOU  DO  NOT  HAVE  A  REWARD  IN  THE  PRES- 
ENCE OF  YOUR  FATHER  IN  HEAVEN. 

THEREFORE  WHENEVER  YOU  GIVE  ALMS  DO  NOT  BLOW 
A  TRUMPET  BEFORE  YOU  AS  THE  HYPOCRITES  DO  IN  THE 
CHURCHES  AND  IN  THE  STREETS  IN  ORDER  THAT  MEN 
MAY  GIVE  THEM  GLORY.  INDEED  I  TELL  YOU  THEY 
HAVE  THEIR  REWARD.  BUT  WHEN  YOU  GIVE  ALMS  DO 
NOT  LET  YOUR  LEFT  HAND  KNOW  WHAT  YOUR  RIGHT  IS 
DOING;  AND  YOUR  FATHER  WHO  SEES  IN  SECRET  SHALL 
REWARD  YOU.  (Some  MSS.  add  OPENLY.) 

AND  WHEN  YOU  PRAY  DO  NOT  BE  LIKE  THE  HYPO- 
CRITES FOR  THEY  LOVE  TO  PRAY  STANDING  IN  THE 
CHURCHES  AND  AT  THE  CORNERS  OF  THE  AVENUES  IN 
ORDER  THAT  THEY  MAY  SHOW  THEMSELVES  OFF  TO  MEN 
(Possibly  SHOW  THEMSELVES  UP).  INDEED  I  TELL  YOU 
THEY  HAVE  THEIR  REWARD.  BUT  WHEN  YOU  PRAY,  GO 
INTO  YOUR  INNER  ROOM  AND  SHUT  THE  DOOR  IN  ORDER 
THAT  YOU  MAY  PRAY  IN  SECRET  TO  YOUR  FATHER:  AND 
YOUR  FATHER,  SEEING  YOU  IN  HIDING,  SHALL  REQUITE 
YOU.  (Again  some  add  OPENLY.) 

AND  WHEN  YOU  PRAY  DO  NOT  RATTLE  ON  WITH  REPE- 
TITIONS AS  THE  HEATHEN  DO;  FOR  THEY  THINK  THAT 
THEY  SHALL  BE  LISTENED  TO  BECAUSE  OF  THEIR  VOLU- 
BILITY. DO  NOT  BE  LIKE  THEM;  FOR  YOUR  FATHER 
KNOWS  WHAT  THINGS  YOU  NEED  BEFORE  YOU  ASK  HIM. 
PRAY  THUS:— 

OUR  FATHER  WHO  ART  IN  HEAVEN,  HALLOWED 
BE  THY  NAME.  THY  KINGDOM  COME— THY  WILL 
BE  DONE  ON  EARTH  AS  IT  IS  IN  HEAVEN.  GIVE 
US  THIS  DAY  OUR  DAILY  BREAD:  AND  FORGIVE 
US  OUR  DEBTS  AS  WE  FORGIVE  OUR  DEBTORS: 
AND  LEAD  US  NOT  INTO  TEMPTATION  BUT  DE- 
LIVER US  FROM  EVIL. 

FOR  IF  YOU  FORGIVE  MEN  FOR  THEIR  TRESPASSES 
YOUR  HEAVENLY  FATHER  WILL  ALSO  FORGIVE  YOU;  BUT 
IF  YOU  DO  NOT  FORGIVE  MEN  FOR  THEIR  TRESPASSES, 
YOUR  FATHER  WILL  NOT  FORGIVE  YOUR  TRESPASSES. 

AND  WHEN  YOU  FAST,  DO  NOT  BECOME  LIKE  THE  HYPO- 
CRITES—LONG FACED:  FOR  THEY  CHANGE  THEIR  EXPRES- 
SIONS IN  ORDER  THAT  THEY  MAY  APPEAR  TO  MEN  TO 
FAST.  VERILY  I  SAY  TO  YOU  THEY  HAVE  THEIR  REWARD. 
BUT  WHEN  YOU  FAST  OIL  YOUR  HEAD  AND  WASH  YOUR 
FACE  IN  ORDER  THAT  YOU  MAY  NOT  APPEAR  TO  MEN  TO 
FAST,  BUT  TO  YOUR  FATHER,  IN  SECRET;  AND  YOUR 
FATHER  SEEING  IN  SECRET  SHALL  RECOMPENSE  YOU. 
(OPENLY  once  more  in  some  MSS.) 

(Matthew  VI:   1-18.) 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  EEWAKD  IN   HEAVEN 

THE  last  chapter  brought  us  face  to  face  with  the 
deepest  issue  of  life — the  reward  for  conduct  or 
the  attainment  of  satisfaction.  The  section  of  the 
Great  Sermon  now  before  us  gives  the  final  word  of  Jesus 
on  the  subject ;  and  His  teaching  here  has  all  the  thorough- 
going, radical  unworldliness  which  we  have  noted  in  His 
entire  view  of  life. 

It  will  not  therefore,  at  first,  be  very  acceptable  to  him 
whom  St.  Paul  calls  the  natural,  and  we  call  the  normal 
man.  For  the  ordinary  person  does  not  naturally  feel 
the  truth  of  the  Saviour's  teaching  that  "a  man's  life  con- 
sisteth  not  in  the  abundance  of  the  things  that  he  possess- 
eth."  The  general  understanding  is  quite  to  the  con- 
trary. It  is  the  instinctive  impression  of  all  men  that 
the  amount  of  one's  possessions  does  determine  his  satis- 
faction in  life. 

In  this  connection  it  does  no  good  to  point  out  the  in- 
numerable facts  which  prove  that  this  impression  is  intel- 
lectually untenable.  Undoubtedly  the  most  obvious  truth 
of  any  man's  experience  is  that  the  amount  of  possessions 
which  those  around  him  have  is  no  measure  of  their  hap- 
piness: but  obvious  truths  have  very  little  influence  over 
instinctive  feelings.  So  that  no  matter  what  every  man 
sees  as  to  failure  of  his  neighbor's  possessions  to  give 
satisfaction,  he  is  certain  that  in  his  own  case  it  would 
be  different. 

But  absurd  as  this  general  notion  may  be  there  is  some 


86  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

justification  for  holding  it:  because  we  should  never  for- 
get that  the  average  man  must  have  a  certain  amount  of 
material  welfare  in  order  to  attain  his  normal  spiritual 
development.  The  instrument  through  which  the  individ- 
.ual  person  expresses  himself  and  attains  spiritual  effective- 
ness is  his  nervous  system — a  very  complex  material  sub- 
stance, dependent  for  its  best  development  upon  a  plenti- 
ful, wholesome,  and  varied  form  of  nourishment.  This 
nourishment  moreover  cannot  have  its  proper  effect  in  a 
body  that  is  not  adequately  clothed  and  does  not  have  a 
reasonable  amount  of  rest  and  recreation. 

No  intelligent  civilization  could  fail  to  take  such  matters 
into  account  and  of  course  the  Kingdom  of  God  takes 
them  for  granted.  But  necessary  as  proper  material  con- 
ditions are,  they  are  not  in  the  Kingdom,  as  they  are  in 
this  world,  the  end  and  aim  of  existence.  The  abiding 
satisfactions  of  life  cannot  be  found  in  them. 

But  abiding  satisfaction  in  life  is  a  vital  consideration 
in  the  Heavenly  Realm:  and  its  theory  of  such  satisfac- 
tion is  based  upon  a  broader  point  of  view  than  any  that 
is  limited  to  mere  economic  considerations.  Material 
things  play  an  important  part  in  life's  satisfactions;  but 
we  shall  go  far  astray  if  we  do  not  realize  that  the  primary 
element  in  the  case  is  not  economics  but  that  for  which 
alone  economics  exists — human  desire:  and  although  hu- 
man desire  has  economic  satisfactions,  these  can  never  ful- 
fill human  desire. 

Indeed  the  deepest  satisfactions  known  to  men  have 
never  been  the  economic  ones.  They  have  not  been  along 
the  line  of  receiving  to  oneself  but  of  giving  of  oneself. 
All  parents  know  that  the  joy  which  they  had  as  children 
in  receiving  presents  at  Christmas  or  on  their  birthdays, 
intense  as  it  may  have  been,  is  incomparable  with  the  joy 
they  have  in  giving  presents  to  their  children.  Although 


8? 

we  have  no  account  of  the  occasion  on  which  they  were 
spoken,  we  know  there  were  never  any  more  characteristic 
words  of  Jesus  than  those  quoted  by  Paul: — "It  is  more 
blessed  to  give  than  to  receive." 

This  truth  is  the  basis  of  those  paradoxical  Beatitudes 
which  speak  of  the  blessedness  of  persecution  and  suffering 
for  righteousness'  sake.  For  such  experiences  mark  the 
giving  of  oneself  wholly  and  completely:  and  it  is  only 
in  such  giving  that  the  ultimate  satisfaction  can  be  found. 
No  phenomenon  could  be  more  natural  than  that  related 
of  Saint  Stephen  of  whom,  when  he  was  undergoing  the 
supreme  test  of  offering  himself  wholly  to  a  great  cause, 
it  is  said: — "And  those  who  sat  in  the  council,  looking 
steadfastly  upon  him,  saw  his  face  as  it  had  been  the  face 
of  an  angel." 

In  this  light  even  the  futility  and  insanity  of  war  seem 
to  take  on  a  kind  of  meaning :  and  the  power  of  mere  Jingo 
patriotism  to  make  men  forego  all  their  economic  inter- 
ests lies  in  its  offering  them  a  chance  to  give  themselves 
completely  to  a  great  cause.  Ordinary  men  seldom  get 
a  thrill  of  satisfaction  or  an  enduring  memory  like  those 
arising  out  of  their  undergoing  the  utmost  danger,  hard- 
ship, and  tribulation  for  that  which  is  more  than  they. 
There  is  a  real  "glory  even  at  the  cannon's  mouth"  in 
that  there  is  revealed  there  the  unconquerable  spirit  in  the 
humblest  and  most  ordinary  men. 

Indeed  one's  glory  may  be  defined  as  the  manifestation 
for  the  good  of  others  of  that  which  is  best  in  himself. 
The  artist,  the  musician,  and  the  poet  all  give  the  best  that 
is  in  them,  and  the  satisfaction  which  they  take  in  doing 
their  work  well  is  greater  than  any  other  satisfaction  that 
can  come  to  them. 

So  to  the  man  worthy  of  citizenship  in  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  the  doing  of  righteousness,  which  is  the  essence 


88  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

of  that  citizenship,  is  the  supreme  satisfaction  in  life :  and 
in  this  fact  lies  the  crucial  difference  between  actual  Chris- 
tianity and  Pharisaism — a  difference  which  is  beautifully 
illustrated  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  by  the  parable  of  the  true 
shepherd  and  the  hireling.  The  Pharisee  is  the  hireling; 
he  performs  his  righteousness  with  a  view  to  tangible  re- 
ward; he  knows  nothing  of  the  satisfaction  of  the  good 
shepherd  in  the  very  activities  of  caring  for  the  sheep. 

It  may  be  noted,  by  the  way,  that  one  of  the  worst  curses 
of  modern  industrialism  lies  along  this  line.  Present- 
day  machinery  in  supplanting  handicraft  has  made  it  nec- 
essary for  an  increasing  number  of  workers  to  be  chained 
to  the  monotonous  grind  of  a  single  tedious  process  like 
sealing  cans  or  stamping  buttons,  the  machinery  doing  all 
the  work  that  could  interest  a  workman  and  the  workman, 
unless  he  be  infinitely  more  resourceful  than  the  average 
person,  finding  no  scope  for  the  shepherding  instinct — no 
satisfaction  in  the  doing  of  his  task. 

Because  of  this  fact  there  is  a  general  deterioration  in 
workmanship  affecting  a  great  deal  of  the  product  of  mod- 
ern industry.  Furniture  made  in  America  two  hundred 
years  ago  will  outlast  most  of  the  furniture  made  here 
to-day.  Leather  tanned  by  the  old  process  was  far  better 
than  the  chemically  treated  product  that  we  use.  The 
durable  qualities  whether  of  furniture  or  of  shoe  leather 
have  gone  with  the  satisfaction  of  the  craftsman  in  his 
craft.  The  hireling  has  supplanted  the  shepherd  of  the 
sheep. 

Thus  has  arisen  Sabotage — the  most  natural  develop- 
ment conceivable  under  the  above  conditions.  It  is  dis- 
tinctly the  invention  of  the  employer  rather  than  of  the 
employed:  and  Prof.  Veblen  has  demonstrated  beyond  a 
peradventure  that  Sabotage  is  the  basis  of  many  large 
accretions  of  wealth.  If  you  ask  any  I.W.W.  member 


THE  REWARD  IN  HEAVEN  89 

about  his  organization's  open  advocacy  of  Sabotage  he  will 
tell  you  that  the  workers  learned  it  from  the  master  class ; 
and  he  will  recount  experiences  of  doing,  under  compul- 
sion from  his  employers,  such  things  as  packing  the  large 
apples  or  potatoes  at  the  top  of  the  container  in  order  to 
conceal  the  great  bulk  of  smaller  ones,  or  putting  paste- 
board into  shoe  leather  and  foreign  substances  into  silk, 
or  poisonous  adulterations  into  food,  or  a  thousand  and 
one  other  similar  capitalistic  tricks  which  make  up  the  rule 
rather  than  the  exception.  Fruit  and  vegetables  are  often 
destroyed  in  order  to  raise  the  price  of  what  is  left,  hides 
are  kept  back  in  storehouses  in  order  to  elevate  the  price 
of  shoes,  eggs  are  held  in  storage  in  order  to  make  them 
dear,  and  labor  is  deliberately  kept  in  inactivity  in  order 
to  make  it  cheap.  We  legislate  against  labor  Sabotage 
but  the  capitalist  can  and  does  retard  the  wheels  of  in- 
dustry ad  libitum  when  it  becomes  to  his  interest  so  to  do. 

But  all  Sabotage,  whether  that  of  Capital  or  that  of 
Labor,  is  due  to  our  remoteness  from  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  with  its  insistence  upon  the  fact  that  life's  deepest 
satisfactions  come  in  the  rendering  of  good  service.  We 
are  too  content  with  the  ways  of  this  world  which  the 
wisdom  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  distinguishes  so  sharply  from 
the  Kingdom.  The  way  of  the  world  is  for  each  to  extract 
all  that  is  possible  to  his  individual  advantage:  the  way 
of  the  Kingdom  is  for  each  to  contribute  all  that  is  possible 
to  the  common  good.  The  world  receives  its  satisfaction 
apart  from  its  work :  the  Kingdom  receives  its  satisfaction 
in  its  work. 

Nowhere  is  the  way  of  the  world  more  evident  to-day 
than  in  the  field  of  journalism.  It  is  a  field  in  which, 
ideally,  one  who  devoted  himself  to  its  possibilities  would 
take  unlimited  satisfaction.  For  it  ought  to  be  obvious 
that  political  freedom  is  as  dependent  upon  truth  as  is 


90  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

spiritual  freedom,  and  the  ostensible  object  of  journalism 
is  the  promulgation  and  interpretation  of  current  facts. 
For  a  man  of  insight  and  power  of  expression  there  would 
seem  to  be  few  more  attractive  opportunities  for  service. 

But  too  often  in  these  days  journalism  is  used  for  any- 
thing except  the  promulgation  of  truth.  Great  financial 
interests  buy  the  important  periodicals  or  secure  domi- 
nance over  them  in  order  to  disseminate  ideas  which  ad- 
vance their  business  interests  and  in  order  to  win  support 
for  politicians  who  serve  them.  In  accomplishing  this 
purpose  they  have  to  hire  men  who  have  very  keen  intelli- 
gence but  who  are  willing  to  prostitute  their  integrity  in 
the  interest  of  that  which  is  not  true. 

Moreover  in  addition  to  editorial  distortion  of  truth 
there  is  a  widespread  suppression  of  truth  and  deliberate 
promulgation  of  falsehood  on  the  part  of  news  gathering 
and  distributing  agencies.  Just  how  far  the  process  has 
already  gone  it  would  be  hard  to  say :  but  it  is  a  perfectly 
simple  process  for  a  great  financial  combination  to  make 
terms  with  an  important  press  bureau.  If  financial  gain 
rather  than  human  service  be  the  motive  of  the  press 
bureau — and  the  most  optimistic  would  be  justified  in 
wondering  if  financial  considerations  might  not  influence 
a  news  trust — there  is  absolutely  certain  to  be  a  tendency 
to  color  and  suppress  news  unfavorable  to  special  interests. 
It  is  the  nature  of  the  hireling  not  to  care  for  the  sheep. 

Success  in  the  above  process  depends  upon  that  which 
Jesus  hated  with  all  the  intensity  of  His  being — hypoc- 
risy. The  editor  gives  the  impression,  and,  in  order  to 
be  successful  must  give  the  impression,  of  urging  upon 
his  readers  convictions  at  which  he  has  arrived  through 
the  exertion  of  his  splendid  mental  faculties,  while  in 
reality  he  is  merely  giving  out  thoughts  dictated  to  him 
by  the  owners  of  the  publication  for  which  he  writes. 


THE  REWARD  IN  HEAVEN  91 

He  is  acting  a  part:  he  is  a  thoroughgoing  hypocrite  (or 
actor) . 

A  similar  evil  affected  for  the  worse  the  life  of  Israel 
in  the  time  of  our  Lord.  The  Pharisees  did  all  in  their 
power  to  appear  righteous  but  it  was  the  appearance  that 
they  desired  most,  not  the  righteousness  itself.  They 
gave  alms,  prayed,  and  fasted  "to  he  seen  of  men." 

This,  after  all,  is  one  of  the  most  influential  incentives 
to  human  conduct.  Frequently  the  compelling  eco- 
nomic motives  have  proved  weaker  than  the  desire  to  be 
seen  favorably  of  men.  Some  poor  people  go  into  reckless 
extravagance  in  order  to  be  seen  of  men  as  rich ;  and  the 
average  person  would  rather  be  seen  to  have  certain  quali- 
ties than  actually  to  possess  them.  There  are  many  right- 
eous men  in  prison  while  a  great  many  who  should  be 
there  are  outside  and  seen  of  men  to  be  righteous:  but 
the  average  man,  if  it  came  to  the  actual  test,  would  rather 
be  in  the  position  of  the  hypocritical  scoundrel  than  in 
that  of  the  publicly  condemned  righteous  man.  Many  a 
refined  woman  would  rather  nourish  a  secret  sin  than  be 
discovered  in  a  slight  open  breach  of  etiquette.  We  all 
incline  to  the  Pharisaic  preference  of  a  good  reputation  to 
deeply  righteous  character. 

But  real  character  is  the  sole  test  of  fitness  for  citizen- 
ship in  the  Heavenly  Realm.  There  one  gives  alms  or 
shows  kindness  in  other  ways  not  to  be  seen  of  men  but 
for  the  pure  joy  of  doing  good:  he  does  not  let  his  left 
hand  know  what  his  right  hand  is  doing.  It  is  the  per- 
forming of  a  good  deed  which  interests  him,  not  the  repu- 
tation for  goodness. 

The  same  principle  is  even  more  striking  in  relation 
to  prayer.  We  still  think  of  the  devotional  nature  as  the 
one  which  makes  long  petitions  and  which  is  meticulous 
in  the  acts  of  worship:  but  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus  the 


92  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

main  purpose  of  prayer  is  not  to  gain  a  reputation  for 
piety;  it  is  to  strengthen  character. 

In  order  to  leave  no  doubt  in  this  matter,  the  Saviour 
gives  His  ideal  prayer — one  that  we  constantly  repeat  but 
seldom  if  ever  feel  to  anything  like  its  depths.  In  har- 
mony with  the  whole  spirit  of  the  sermon  it  makes  God 
and  His  Kingdom  exclusively  paramount.  It  begins  with 
an  endeavor  to  realize  the  presence  of  God  and  as  much 
of  what  that  presence  means  as  the  finite  being  can  com- 
prehend— "Our  Father  Who  art  in  Heaven,  hallowed  be 
Thy  Name."  This  naturally  leads  to  the  thought  of  God's 
purpose  and,  from  the  stand-point  of  the  Gospel,  the  first 
petition  could  not  conceivably  be  other  than  "Thy  King- 
dom come,  Thy  will  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  Heaven" 
— the  most  striking  illustration  imaginable  of  the  con- 
stantly reiterated  supremacy  of  the  Kingdom  of  God.  At 
the  most  solemn  moments  of  a  Christian's  life — his  times 
of  prayer — he  is  taught  by  Christ  to  put  before  all  other 
possible  concerns  God  and  His  Kingdom. 

All  prayer,  according  to  the  Simple  Gospel,  centers 
here.  For  him  who  is  fit  to  enter  the  Kingdom  all  the 
deeper  yearnings  of  the  heart  are  concerned  with  the  in- 
terests of  the  Kingdom.  He  does  not  think  of  his  own 
needs  first:  those  needs — his  daily  bread  and  the  forgive- 
ness of  his  sins — are  secondary  to  the  progress  of  the 
Kingdom.  All  the  petitions  of  the  great  prayer  can  be 
made  merely  with  reference  to  that  progress.  As  one 
who  accepts  the  Gospel,  I  can  pray  for  only  those  things 
which  conform  to  the  Gospel.  Since  the  heart  of  the 
Gospel  is  the  coming  of  the  Kingdom,  my  personal  needs 
as  objects  of  prayer  can  have  reference  only  to  my  fitness 
for  advancing  the  Kingdom.  Any  of  my  own  personal 
desires  not  connected  with  the  all-consuming  interests  of 
the  Heavenly  Realm  are,  as  far  as  the  Simple  Gospel 


THE  KEWARD  IN  HEAVEN  93 

is  concerned,  impertinences  wholly  outside  Christian 
bounds. 

The  life  of  the  social  body,  therefore,  is  predominant 
in  Christian  teaching.  The  sublime  prayer  itself  has  the 
social  form.  It  runs  not  My  Father  but  "Our  Father"; 
not  give  me  but  "give  us."  The  idea  of  the  social  group 
is  supreme. 

That  is  the  deepest  reason  for  condemning  the  attitude 
of  the  typical  Pharisee.  He  exalts  himself  above  the 
group  and  he  wants  to  be  esteemed  as  more  generous  and 
more  devotional  than  the  ordinary  man.  He  has  the  de- 
basing self-exaltation  which  fails  to  lose  itself  in  whole- 
hearted service.  In  what  little  he  does  perform  his  main 
object  is  outward  praise  for  himself,  not  internal  satis- 
faction in  doing  good. 

The  same  attitude  is  common  to-day.  Many  an  efficient 
man  or  woman  withdraws  from  telling  work  in  a  good 
cause  because  he  or  she  has  failed  to  receive  due  credit 
for  what  has  been  done;  and  one  of  the  anomalies  in  the 
life  of  a  Christian  minister  is  his  constant  dread  that 
some  Church  member  may  withdraw  from  a  good  piece 
of  service  because  of  not  receiving  full  or  even  fulsome 
praise. 

So  intense  is  this  yearning  for  personal  credit  in  the 
human  heart  that  many  people  actually  enjoy  receiving 
praise  which  they  know  that  they  do  not  deserve.  Several 
prominent  Americans  have  reveled  in  praise  for  making 
discoveries  and  inventions  the  real  credit  for  which  be- 
longs of  right  to  others:  and  it  has  become  the  law  of 
modern  industrial  establishments  that  the  credit  and  emol- 
uments accruing  from  anything  invented  by  a  man  work- 
ing for  any  firm  shall  go  to  the  firm. 

The  pride  that  is  satisfied  in  this  way  is  of  a  piece 
with  the  larger  proportion  of  all  human  pride.  For  the 


94  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

chief  causes  of  pride  in  men  and  women  are  qualities 
like  good  looks,  inherited  social  or  financial  standing,  and 
good  brain  power — traits  for  which  no  conceivable  credit 
is  due  the  possessor.  So  that  while  there  is  a  rhetorical 
difference  between  pride  and  vanity  there  is  very  little 
spiritual  difference  and  the  satisfaction  in  receiving  credit, 
whether  it  be  deserved  or  not,  is  a  vain  thing — an  empty 
reward. 

But  the  satisfaction  in  doing  righteousness  is  a  real  re- 
ward. It  is  the  profoundest  satisfaction  that  can  come. 
If  such  an  exercise  as  fasting  aids  one  spiritually — makes 
for  more  righteousness  in  him,  the  sacrifice  is  nothing;  it 
does  not  demand  marks  of  sadness  but  rather  the  washed 
face  and  the  anointing  oil  of  gladness.  The  reward  that 
God  gives  is  not  in  the  public  appreciation  but  in  the 
intimate,  inner  relation  with  Him. 

This  fact  must  be  remembered  in  connection  with  the 
refrain  of  the  passage  under  discussion  which  has  become 
familiar  to  us  in  the  old  translation : — "Thy  Father  which 
seeth  in  secret  shall  reward  thee  openly."  The  best  texts 
leave  out  the  expression  "openly"  altogether ;  but  if  it  was 
in  the  original  gospel,  it  could  not  mean  "in  the  public 
eye"  for  that  contradicts  the  whole  intention  of  the  pas- 
sage. In  order  to  make  sense  here  the  expression  has  to 
mean  "obviously"  or  "evidently,"  referring  not  to  the 
public  but  to  the  individual  understanding.  "Your  Father 
who  sees  in  secret  shall  reward  you  in  a  manner  perfectly 
evident  to  yourself." 

To  the  materialist,  of  course,  there  is  no  satisfaction 
in  this  Heavenly  type  of  reward.  But  human  nature  is, 
normally,  above  materialism.  Toilers  have  always  found 
their  deepest  satisfaction  in  the  realization  that  others — 
their  dependents,  were  supported  by  their  toil  just  as 
mothers  have  always  found  their  supreme  joy  in  caring  for 


THE  REWARD  IN  HEAVEN  95 

their  broods.     For  humankind  the  satisfaction   derived 
from  loving  service  is  incomparable  with  any  other. 

It  is  a  master  of  his  craft  whose  ideal  of  the  Heavenly 
reward  is: — 

"And  only  the  Master  shall  praise  us,   and   only   the 

Master  shall  blame; 
And  no  one  shall  work  for  money,  and  no  one  shall  work 

for  fame; 
But  each  for  the  joy  of  the  working,  and  each,  in  his 

separate  star, 
Shall  draw  the  Thing  as  he  sees  It  for  the  God  of 

Things  as  They  are." 

Some  years  ago  an  English  gentleman,  writing  heavily 
in  the  "Hibbert  Journal,"  found  the  ethical  teaching  of 
Jesus  to  be  on  an  inferior  plane  because  this  itinerant, 
Galilean  Teacher  promised  a  reward  for  righteousness. 
But  very  obviously  the  word  reward  or  pay  as  used  by 
the  Master  is  figurative  and  means  satisfaction  in  a  pur- 
pose fulfilled.  Activity  without  a  purpose,  whether  ethical 
or  of  any  other  type,  has  no  conceivable  dignity  in  it; 
and  such  activity  does  not  suggest  sanity.  The  fact  is 
that  our  heavy  English  gentleman  was  trying  to  uphold 
a  fine  ethical  principle  by  attacking  the  classic  expression 
of  that  principle.  For  this  section  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  is  an  immortal  assertion  of  the  fact  that  righteous- 
ness is  more  desirable  than  any  other  treasure  which  can 
be  acquired. 

It  is  clearly  the  only  abiding  kind  of  reward  because 
the  point  at  which  material  satisfactions  are  ripest  and 
richest  is  the  very  point  where  corruption  and  decay  are 
most  fatally  imminent.  Therefore  it  is  fitting  that  at 
this  juncture  Jesus  should  dwell  upon  the  inadequacy  of 
the  materialistic  interpretation  of  existence: — "Lay  not 


96  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

up  for  yourselves  treasures  upon  earth  where  moth  and 
rust  doth  corrupt  and  where  thieves  break  through  and 
steal." 

But  that  is  another  chapter. 


THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  GOSPEL 


DO  NOT  STORE  UP  FOR  YOURSELVES  TREASURES  UPON 
EARTH  WHERE  MOTH  AND  RUST  SPOIL,  AND  WHERE 
THIEVES  DIG  THROUGH  AND  STEAL:  BUT  STORE  UP  FOR 
YOURSELVES  TREASURES  IN  HEAVEN  WHERE  NEITHER 
MOTH  NOR  RUST  SPOIL,  AND  WHERE  THIEVES  DO  NOT  DIG 
THROUGH  AND  STEAL.  FOR  WHERE  YOUR  HEART  IS  THERE 
ALSO  SHALL  YOUR  TREASURE  BE. 

THE  LAMP  OF  THE  BODY  IS  THE  EYE.  IF,  THEN,  YOUR 
EYE  BE  SINGLE,  YOUR  WHOLE  BODY  SHALL  BE  ENLIGHT- 
ENED: BUT  IF  YOUR  EYE  BE  BAD,  YOUR  WHOLE  BODY 
SHALL  BE  DARKENED.  IF,  THEREFORE,  THE  LIGHT  IN 
YOU  BE  DARKNESS,  HOW  GREAT  THAT  DARKNESS  IS! 

(Matthew  VI:   19-23.) 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  LIGHT   OF   THE  GOSPEL 

NONE  of  the  more  profound  minds  of  the  human 
race  have  been  given  to  a  cheap  optimism.  The 
higher  poetry,  whether  in  the  Book  of  Job,  the 
Greek  tragedies,  the  Inferno  of  Dante,  or  in  the  dramas 
of  Shakespeare  and  Goethe,  is  all  permeated  with  a  sense 
of  the  awfulness  of  reality.  The  best  intellect  finds  no 
easy  satisfaction  in  the  world.  It  is  less  on  the  side  of 
the  gushing  triviality  of  Margaret  Fuller  who  said,  "I 
accept  the  universe"  than  on  the  side  of  Carlyle  who,  on 
hearing  of  this  remark,  said,  "She'd  better." 

It  was  not  to  have  been  expected,  then,  that  Jesus  would 
find  the  world  a  primrose  path.  His  boundless  spiritual 
vision  did  not  escape  the  dark  certainties  of  which  less 
perfect  understanding  is  cognizant:  and  nothing  makes 
His  teaching  more  convincing  than  His  straightforward 
realization  of  the  unsatisfactory  elements  in  life.  If  He 
finds  that  the  children  of  this  world  are  in  their  genera- 
tion wiser  than  the  children  of  light,  He  does  not  try 
to  blind  Himself  to  that  fact ;  if  He  sees  that  it  is  a  law 
of  life  that  to  him  that  hath  shall  be  given,  He  accepts 
it  as  a  law  of  life;  and  since  He  sees  that  the  good  are 
not  more  favored  by  worldly  fortune  than  the  wicked,  He 
says  frankly  that  those  who  were  killed  by  the  falling  of 
the  tower  of  Siloam  were  not  worse  than  others. 

In  fact  to  Him  the  essence  of  the  earth's  nature  is  its 
unreliability,  or  rather  its  certainty  to  disappoint  those 
who  put  their  trust  in  its  so-called  good  things.  The  earth 

09 


100  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

in  His  understanding  is  essentially  a  place  "where  moth 
and  rust  spoil  and  where  thieves  dig  through  and 
steal." 

This  is  but  one  of  those  faultless  interpretations  of 
history  and  experience  which  have  made  the  Saviour's 
simple  utterances  the  common  coinage  of  our  remarks  upon 
life  as  we  see  it.  But  nowhere  do  the  facts  bear  out  the 
accuracy  of  llis  observations  more  completely  than  this 
seeing  the  earth  as  a  place  of  corruption  and  forcible 
expropriation. 

Corruption,  as  we  have  already  noted,  is  the  one  abso- 
lute certainty  in  material  development.  No  matter  how 
much  of  the  world's  substance  a  man  may  accrue  to  him- 
self, the  longest  human  life  is  very  brief  and  even  if  moth 
and  rust  do  not  corrupt  his  treasures,  the  man  himself 
is  doomed  to  material  dissolution  usually  at  the  height  of 
his  success. 

But  material  success  can  come,  in  the  nature  of  things, 
to  only  a  few  compared  with  the  whole  number  of  human 
beings.  The  more  the  material  wealth  that  accrues  to  this 
so  considered  fortunate  few,  the  less  of  it  is  there  to  be 
distributed  among  the  less  fortunate  many.  "To  him  who 
has  shall  be  given  and  from  him  who  has  not  shall  be 
taken  even  the  little  that  he  has" ;  and  forcible  expropria- 
tion of  the  possessions  of  the  weak  by  the  strong  is  as 
fundamental  a  scientific  fact  of  the  life  of  the  world  as 
is  the  certainty  of  material  corruption.  For  the  first 
law  of  biology  is  that  of  an  unending  struggle  for  exist- 
ence resulting  in  the  survival  of  the  most  successfully 
acquisitive ;  and  the  dominant  law  of  history  has  been  that 
of  the  suppression  and  subjugation  of  the  weaker  political 
units  by  the  stronger. 

The  history  of  England,  for  example,  has  been  that  of 
the  stealing  of  lands  by  one  set  of  conquerors  from  those 


THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  GOSPEL  101 

who,  or  whose  ancestors,  had  stolen  them  in  former  time. 
Even  in  America  the  spirit  of  this  kind  of  theft,  now 
known  as  imperialism,  is  still  strong. 

Moreover,  it  is  in  America  that  the  crowning  example 
of  forcible  expropriation  has  developed.  The  American 
Trust,  as  we  have  already  noted,  has  without  conscience 
and  without  fear  appropriated  or  destroyed  the  possessions 
of  any  business  interest  which  stood  in  its  way.  It  may 
be  true  that  stealing  and  murder  were  not  necessary  in 
the  building  up  of  our  great  trusts  but  it  is  certainly  true 
that  such  crimes  have  been  and  probably  will  continue  to 
be  perpetrated  by  the  trusts  in  the  course  of  their  develop- 
ment. Crime  of  this  nature  is  but  the  necessary  outcome 
of  the  way  of  the  world — that  "earth  where  thieves  dig 
through  and  steal." 

But  Jesus  is  conscious  of  the  existence  of  a  Realm  in 
which  corruption  and  forcible  expropriation  are  not  the 
rule.  "Store  up  for  yourselves  treasures  in  Heaven  where 
neither  moth  nor  rust  spoil,  and  where  thieves  do  not  dig 
through  and  steal."  These  words  might  be  taken  as  con- 
firming the  point  of  view  mentioned  in  an  earlier  chapter 
as  so  odious  to  socially  alert  minds — the  idea  that  we 
should  be  content  with  evil  conditions  here  in  our  hope 
for  compensation  hereafter.  There  surely  is  in  the  passage 
that  feeling  of  the  permanent  reality  of  spiritual  things 
which  pervades  the  entire  ~New  Testament:  and  words  of 
Jesus  like  these  bear  out  St.  Paul  when  he  says: — "The 
things  which  are  seen  are  temporal  but  the  things  that  are 
unseen  are  eternal." 

For  reasons  which  will  appear  forthwith  the  mind  of 
Christ  could  not  make  the  easy  deduction  that  because 
all  material  being  and  possessions  are  transitory  nothing 
is  lasting — nothing  is  immortal.  As  we  found  in  the 
above  chapter  the  deepest  yearnings  of  men  and  women 


102  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

have  no  material  satisfaction ;  and  it  is  even  more  obvious 
that  the  heaviest  afflictions  have  no  material  solace.  Jesus 
could  not  believe  that  our  Heavenly  Father  would  disap- 
point the  noblest  and  most  ardent  longings  of  His  children. 
As  the  second  Beatitude  suggests  the  very  mourning  of 
the  bereaved  is  an  earnest  of  their  future  comfort.  This 
is  because  spiritual  force  is  an  unconquerable  force:  and 
St.  Paul's  interpretation  of  the  Resurrection  as  the  tri- 
umph of  spiritual  power  over  material  force — the  Spirit 
over  the  flesh — is  in  keeping  with  the  principle. 

The  application  of  that  principle  in  the  passage  under 
consideration  is  the  most  interesting  of  all  its  applications 
although  it  seems  to  have  been  strangely  overlooked.  For 
while  there  has  been  enough  misinterpretation  of  passages 
of  this  kind  to  give  those  who  were  eager  to  believe  it 
the  impression  that  the  Church  has  taught  submission  to 
social  wrong  to  be  a  virtue  that  is  rewarded  in  the  here- 
after, the  actual  purport  of  this  passage,  in  its  entirety, 
is  wholly  in  the  other  direction.  The  firm  assurance  of 
Jesus  that  the  spiritual  is  supreme  over  the  material  makes 
it  necessary  in  His  ideal  that  the  spiritual  shall  triumph 
in  the  material  conditions  of  this  world.  His  dissatisfac- 
tion and  discontent  with  the  way  of  the  world  are  un- 
bounded and  His  Gospel  cannot  be  truly  received  without 
revolutionizing  the  world. 

To  be  sure  He  does  not  teach  forcible  revolution:  but 
the  unvarying  lesson  of  history  that  force  can  only  beget 
force  justifies,  to  common  sense,  His  peace  ideal.  It 
follows  therefore  that  the  spiritual  way  is  the  only  way 
out  of  the  world's  iniquities.  Spiritual  life  is  the  only 
power  that  can  overcome  the  earth's  essential  processes 
of  decay  and  loss.  Moreover  no  sane  man  can  doubt  that 
the  way  of  Jesus  would  remove  all  the  iniquities  of 
the  way  of  the  world:  and  we  have  no  reason  to  believe 


THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  GOSPEL  103 

that  there  is  any  other  system  which  can  bring  complete 
fairness  and  full  justice  to  mankind. 

At  all  events  ideal  systems  of  social  order  have  been 
suggested  in  unlimited  number  by  the  finest  minds  of  the 
human  race;  and  innumerable  idealistic  experiments  in 
community  life  have  been  made  by  very  intelligent  and 
sincere  men  and  women.  Nevertheless  trouble  and  care 
still  fret  the  world  as  a  moth  fretteth  a  garment ;  and  the 
highly  respectable  rich  and  strong  still  exploit  the  weak 
and  poor  just  as  those  of  old  "devoured  widows'  houses 
and  for  pretense  made  long  prayers." 

But  beyond  all  the  world's  pathetic  inadequacy  remains 
the  one  great  social  ideal  not  yet  taken  seriously  and  the 
one  alluring  social  experiment  still  untried — the  idea  of 
the  Kingdom  of  God,  the  Simple  Gospel  of  Christ.  This 
Gospel  men  and  women  have  not,  to  any  great  extent,  ac- 
cepted because  their  hearts  have  not  been  truly  in  it: 
for  "where  one's  heart  is  there  shall  his  treasure  be  also." 
The  fact  that  we  are  so  eager  to  store  up  treasures  upon 
earth  makes  real  eagerness  for  Heavenly  treasure  on  our 
part  impossible. 

This  principle  is  now  developed  in  the  sermon  with 
consummate  beauty,  and  the  passage  before  us  contains 
all  that  the  most  profound  psychologists  can  say  in  the 
matter  without  resorting  to  their  tedious  verbiage.  In- 
deed it  is  striking  that  words  so  simple  and  beautiful  as 
these  in  the  last  half  of  the  Sixth  chapter  of  St.  Matthew 
should  conform  so  closely  to  the  best  results  of  modern 
psychology. 

The  truth  which  this  psychology  emphasizes,  more  per- 
haps than  all  others,  is  that  of  the  power  of  suggestion. 
We  have  learned  that  very  few,  if  any,  men  can  escape 
the  influence  of  the  peculiar  prepossessions  of  their  minds, 
and  that  these  prepossessions  are  often  more  likely  to  affect 


104  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

our  view  of  facts  than  facts  are  to  affect  these  preposses- 
sions. That  is  to  say  the  principle  of  hypnotism,  in  a  com- 
paratively mild  form,  is  at  work  in  our  mental  life  far 
more  generally  than  we  imagine.  The  hypnotized  subject 
sees  everything  in  the  light  of  the  suggestion  dominating 
his  attention :  if  he  receives  the  suggestion  that  the  floor  is 
a  pool  of  water,  he  will  see  the  water  and  none  of  the 
actual  facts  that  contradict  the  suggestion  will  have  any 
effect  upon  him.  This  is  of  course  an  extreme  case;  but 
it  is  the  same  principle  as  this,  in  a  less  intense  form, 
which  makes  the  political  partisan  unconscious  of  any  of 
the  faults  or  inconsistencies  in  his  party's  program,  and 
that  makes  the  spiritualist  oblivious  to  material  limita- 
tions and  the  materialist  oblivious  to  spiritual  realities. 

All  this  we  moderns  call  the  psychology  of  suggestion 
but  Jesus  deals  with  the  same  phenomena  in  simpler 
though  far  more  expressive  terms: — "The  lamp  of  the 
body  is  the  eye :  if  therefore  your  eye  is  single,  your  whole 
body  shall  be  full  of  light."  Here  the  eye  stands  for  that 
dominant  prepossession  which  governs  our  vision  of  ex- 
perience. It  is  the  point  from  which  we  get  the  light  in 
which  we  view  all  that  is  around  us. 

Upon  this  point  of  view  depends  our  entire  under- 
standing: from  it  we  seek  and  receive  light:  it  is  our 
enlightening  eye.  This  is  seen  in  such  an  ordinary  matter 
as  the  way  in  which  people  read  their  newspapers.  The 
banker  turns  at  once,  on  receiving  his  sheet,  to  the  stock 
reports ;  the  athlete,  to  the  sporting  column ;  the  young 
lady,  to  the  fashion  notes ;  and  the  seaman,  to  the  shipping 
news.  Our  heart  interests  guide  our  attention  and  they 
do  help  to  illuminate  our  understanding.  For  we  all 
realize  that  when  we  are  particularly  interested  in  any 
subject  we  are  constantly  discovering  new  facts  with  re- 
gard to  that  subject:  if,  for  example,  an  intimate  friend 


THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  GOSPEL  105 

goes  to  live  in  some  remote  place  we  suddenly  begin  to 
notice,  in  our  reading,  various  accounts  of  that  place  and 
we  wonder  why  such  an  interesting  locality  never  inter- 
ested us  before. 

Facts  like  this  represent  the  good  side  of  the  psychology 
of  suggestion.  An  absorbing  point  of  view  is  an  illuminat- 
ing thing.  Our  cherished  fundamental  convictions,  if  we 
are  sane,  determine  our  characters.  Even  a  prejudice  can 
bring  us  some  understanding.  "If  your  eye  be  single 
your  whole  body  shall  be  full  of  light." 

But  there  is  a  sinister  side  to  the  same  principle.  "But 
if  your  eye  be  bad,  your  whole  body  shall  be  darkened. 
If  therefore  the  light  which  is  in  you  be  darkness,  how 
great  the  darkness  is!"  The  word  "bad"  here  has  both 
a  physical  and  a  moral  meaning;  and  Jesus  would  have 
us  think  both  of  a  defective  vision  and  of  a  view  of  life 
which  is  spiritually  evil. 

To  consider  the  latter  case  first  there  is  a  type  of  mind, 
far  too  common,  which  is  so  dirty  that  it  tends  to  befoul 
everything  which  enters  into  it.  There  are  men  whose 
entire  mental  processes  are  so  salacious  that  they  can  find 
a  filthy  suggestion  in  the  most  commonplace  remark:  and 
with  this  type  of  mind  it  is  hard  not  to  classify  those 
scientists  who  find  in  the  sexual  impulse  the  origin  and 
cause  of  all  that  is  high  and  holy  in  life. 

Not  quite  so  loathsome  as  this  variety  of  bad  eye  and 
yet  thoroughly  bad  is  that  of  the  cynic — the  man  whose 
point  of  view  is  that  all  apparent  goodness  is  sham.  His 
eye  is  so  bad  that  all  his  vision  of  the  righteousness  of 
others  is  darkened.  He  has  lost  the  power  of  discernment. 

But  the  bad  eye  is  not  always  morally  bad.  There  is 
the  eye  which  produces  darkness  within  because  it  is  de- 
fective. In  other  words  one's  point  of  view  is  often  too 
constrained  to  let  in  the  full  light. 


106  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

This  kind  of  visual  defect  is  well  exemplified  by  those 
who  are  captivated  by  any  one  of  the  various  systems  of 
healing  that  come  into  vogue  from  time  to  time.  When 
some  peculiar  kind  of  healing  has  seemed  to  be  successful 
in  certain  cases,  those  who  are  especially  interested  in 
that  kind  of  healing  jump  to  the  conclusion  that  it  is  good 
for  every  malady  and  that  it  is  the  only  true  system. 
Homeopathy  has  worked  out  favorably  in  many  cases  and 
therefore  the  typical  Homeopathist  believes  it  to  be  the 
only  system  that  should  be  practiced.  So  with  the  various 
forms  of  psychic  or  mental  healing  excellent  results  are 
often  obtained  particularly  in  relieving  the  very  painful 
physical  accompaniments  of  nervous  disorders ;  and  many 
who  have  seen  such  results  believe  the  peculiar  type  of 
psychic  healing  which  they  have  observed  to  be  the  ex- 
clusively sure  cure  for  all  ailments.  The  Christian  Scien- 
tist considers  it  blasphemous  to  attribute  his  cures  to  sug- 
gestion ;  and  the  New  Thought  enthusiast,  while  also  mak- 
ing light  of  the  power  of  suggestion,  excludes  the  claims 
of  Christian  Science. 

Thus  all  healers  are  inclined  to  look  upon  their  practice 
from  a  single  viewpoint,  attributing  unlimited  power  to 
their  fragmentary  scheme.  They  have  the  single  eye  but 
the  light  that  is  in  them  is  darkness  because  their  defec- 
tive, inadequate  point  of  view  will  not  admit  any  light 
from  other  sources.  The  sincere  chiropractor  or  osteopath 
— and  orthodox  medicine  is  probably  wrong  in  denying  that 
any  such  are  sincere — cannot  see  truths  according  to  which 
Homeopaths  practice  with  considerable  success;  there  are 
still  a  few  rigid  materialists  who  allow  no  credit  to  psychic 
treatment;  and  many  psychic  practitioners  consider  all 
materia  medica  worthless.  Rare  indeed  is  the  physician 
of  larger  enlightenment  who  can  use  various  systems  to 
suit  individual  cases. 


THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  GOSPEL  107 

But  the  medical  field  is  not  unique  in  exemplifying  this 
principle.  Everywhere  the  restricted  point  of  view  shuts 
out  the  full  light  in  proportion  to  its  restrictions.  In  art 
and  poetry,  for  example,  we  have  such  incarnations  of  im- 
perfection as  futurism  and  free  verse  taking  themselves 
seriously  as  expressions  of  the  ideal  absolute  in  their 
spheres.  Truth  and  beauty  are  here  darkly  clouded  in 
the  vision  of  those  who  are  confident  that  their  sight  is 
faultless.  So  it  is  everywhere:  each  man  considers  his 
particular  outlook  the  only  illuminating  one.  Browning 
makes  Abt  Yogler,  at  his  instrument,  say: — 

"Each  sufferer  says  his  say,  his  scheme  of  the  weal  and 

the  woe : 

But  God  has  a  few  of  us  whom  He  whispers  in  the  ear ; 
The  rest  may  reason  and  welcome:  'tis  we  musicians 
know." 

But  if  Abt  Vogler  had  been  a  banker,  or  a  physician,  or 
a  street  car  conductor  he  would  have  been  just  as  certain 
that  because  of  his  point  of  vantage  for  viewing  the  world 
his  enlightenment  was  superior. 

This  failing  is  especially  marked  in  those  of  a  scientific 
turn.  There  is  none  so  dominated  by  suggestion  as  is  the 
materialist,  and  it  is  not  strange  that  this  should  be  the 
case:  because  the  material  world  is  a  definite  focus  for 
the  attention;  and  it  readily  becomes  the  dominant,  light- 
excluding,  hypnotic  suggestion  which  determines  one's  en- 
tire view  of  reality.  ~Not  necessarily,  of  course,  for  there 
have  been  many  like  Swedenborg,  Fechner,  Lombroso,  and 
Lodge  whose  extraordinary  scientific  acumen  has  not  re- 
stricted their  ability  to  escape  the  dominance  of  the  materi- 
alistic point  of  view.  Nevertheless  the  tendency  is  pecul- 
iarly strong  among  scientific  men  to  allow  the  understand- 
ing to  be  darkened  by  an  inadequate  vision  of  reality. 


108  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

An  interesting  phase  of  their  general  materialism  is  the 
attitude  that  they  are  most  likely  to  take  toward  the  idea 
of  personal  immortality.  To  them  the  idea  is  obviously 
absurd:  and  yet  it  is  a  fact  that  the  ordinary  inference 
from  a  dead  body  that  the  soul  has  become  extinct  is  due 
far  more  to  the  influence  of  suggestion  than  to  the  appli- 
cation of  reason.  To  the  person  who  draws  such  an  in- 
ference the  dead  body  acts  as  a  focus  of  attention  similar 
to  that  which  is  used  in  preparing  the  subject  for  the 
hypnotic  state. 

Another  such  focus  is  economic  reality;  and  there  is 
a  strong  trend  in  modern  thought  toward  the  idea  of  eco- 
nomic determinism  or  the  materialist  conception  of  his- 
tory. It  is  true,  moreover,  that  the  influence  of  economic 
conditions  upon  history  has  been  very  much  neglected  by 
some  historians.  We  have  not  fully  appreciated  such  facts 
as  that  the  endeavor  to  free  the  trade  with  the  East  from 
the  danger  of  Saracen  brigands  was  a  major  cause  of  the 
crusades,  or  that  cheapening  the  traffic  with  India  seemed 
worth  frightful  risks  to  Columbus,  or  that  the  cotton  in- 
dustry was  the  crux  of  the  Civil  War  in  the  United  States, 
or  that  the  desire  to  control  world  markets  lay  at  the 
bottom  of  the  recent  world  cataclysm :  for  economic  influ- 
ences do  exert  a  tremendous  pressure  upon  history. 

Nevertheless  it  is  only  a  mind  ensnared  in  the  trap  of 
suggestion  that  can  find  in  economics  the  whole  point  of 
history.  For  there  are  other  factors  like  the  promulgation 
of  knowledge  and  the  development  of  religion  which  are 
also  powerful  in  determining  the  course  of  history.  It  is 
true,  no  doubt,  that  educational  and  religious  institutions 
have  been,  time  and  again,  more  or  less  perverted  by  eco- 
nomic forces ;  and  yet  knowledge  and  religion  are  prized  for 
their  own  sakes  more  highly  than  all  material  possessions. 
A  telescopic  or  a  microscopic  lens  that  would  take  us  a 


THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  GOSPEL  109 

little  farther  into  the  infinite  or  into  the  infinitesimal 
would  command  a  price  all  out  of  proportion  to  any  con- 
ceivable economic  gain  which  could  accrue  from  the  larger 
knowledge:  and  religion  is  so  precious  to  mankind  that 
men  and  women  without  number  have  been  and  are  will- 
ing to  sacrifice  all  that  they  possess  and  even  their  lives 
in  its  service.  It  was  not  economic  advantage  that  kept 
the  Pilgrim  Fathers  at  Plymouth  after  their  first,  ghastly 
winter;  and  even  that  most  economically  minded  of  all 
men,  the  typical  Jew,  will  keep  the  fires  of  his  religion 
burning  at  all  costs. 

Indeed  one  could  become  as  readily  hypnotized  by  the 
religious  conception  of  history  as  by  the  economic.  The 
history  of  England,  for  example,  is  dominated  by  religious 
motives:  and  very  early  the  conversion  of  the  Teutonic 
conquerors  of  Britain  to  Christianity  showed  its  effect. 
To  be  sure  Christianity  has  not  even  yet  taken  away 
from  Teutonic  peoples  the  lust  of  conquest  and  the  desire 
of  the  strong  to  oppress  the  weak:  but  at  the  outset  it 
so  modified  the  barbarity  of  their  conquering  spirit  that 
whereas  the  heathen  Angles,  Jutes,  and  Saxons  annihi- 
lated completely  the  early  British  inhabitants,  we  find 
that  after  these  peoples  were  converted  to  Christianity 
they  were  far  less  cruel  and  in  the  last  sections  to  be 
conquered — Somerset,  Devon,  and  Cornwall — we  still  find 
remnants  of  the  earlier  Celts.  Again  we  find  that  the 
union  of  the  early  Teutonic  kingdoms  of  Britain  into  one 
nation,  which  was  such  an  extremely  difficult  process,  was 
really  brought  about  by  the  unity  of  the  Church  in  Eng- 
land whose  laws,  councils,  and  jurisdiction  covered  the 
whole  body  of  Christians  in  England.  Among  the  famous 
names  of  Great  Britain  moreover  there  are  more  of  the 
clergy  and  their  children  than  of  any  other  class. 

Nevertheless  the  man  of  understanding  does  not  let 


110  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

the  effect  of  either  religion  or  learning  upon  history  blind 
him  to  the  effect  of  economic  influences  any  more  than 
he  lets  the  simple  materialistic  facts  exclude  further  light. 
In  other  words  he  is  not  a  rigid  dogmatist:  for,  while 
it  is  perhaps  not  necessarily  the  case,  it  is  likely  to  be 
the  effect  of  dogma  to  serve  as  the  paradoxical  light  of 
which  Jesus  speaks — "the  light  in  you  which  is  dark- 
ness." 

Now  it  should  be  noted  that  dogmatism  in  these  days 
is  not  the  weakness  of  the  more  alert  minds  of  the  religious 
type.  In  our  day  it  is  frequently  the  principles  of  science 
that  are  so  rigid  that  it  becomes  hard  to  redefine  them 
in  view  of  further,  modifying  light.  Scientific  truths 
are  gathered  so  rapidly  that  a  text-book  of  science  is  good 
only  for  a  brief  period  after  which  it  is  superseded  by 
others  containing  newer  illumination :  and  yet  the  teacher 
and  student  of  science  constantly  feel  that  they  are  deal- 
ing with  the  eternal  and  unchanging  realities — that  "the 
things  which  are  seen  are  eternal." 

This  scientifically  dogmatic  attitude,  unfortunately, 
seems  to  be  obsessing  the  minds  of  many  of  the  more 
socially  enlightened  persons  of  to-day.  Those  who,  with 
considerable  reason,  are  all  at  odds  with  the  prevailing 
social  system  tend  to  have  a  very  exalted  opinion  of  their 
own  grasp  of  economic  science.  They  commonly  speak  of 
one  of  their  number  as  "one  who  knows";  and,  with  the 
kindest  spirit  in  the  world,  it  would  have  to  be  admitted 
that  they  tend  to  have  an  intellectual  pride  in  what  they 
consider  themselves  to  have  apprehended  which  is  not 
usually  found  in  solid  scholarship. 

They  would  do  well  to  remember  that  economics  is  the 
most  complicated  of  all  sciences,  its  ultimate  truths  only 
to  be  comprehended  by  those  who  comprehend  the  whole 
meaning  of  the  throbbing  life  of  humanity  from  its  low- 


THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  GOSPEL  111 

est  vices  to  its  most  exalted  esthetics.  For  value,  price 
and  profit,  if  we  get  any  adequate  view  of  them,  are  found 
to  be  connected  with  every  element  of  living. 

Therefore  we  can  hardly  expect  this  science  to  remain 
static  while  sciences  like  biology,  chemistry,  and  physics, 
vastly  easier  of  comprehension  than  economics,  are  always 
expanding  and  demanding  constant  intellectual  readjust- 
ment. It  is  not  easy  to  believe,  even  granting  them  full 
credit  for  great  contributions  to  science,  that  Marx  and 
Engels  shall  remain  the  two  single  infallibly  inspired 
writers  of  the  human  race  when  Darwin,  Spencer,  and 
all  the  other  immortal  scientists  have  in  many  respects 
been  outgrown. 

The  dogmatism  that  would  so  teach  spreads  darkness 
rather  than  light.  It  impedes  that  extension  of  vision 
upon  which  all  progress  depends.  It  is  akin  to  every  kind 
of  conviction,  prepossession  or  prejudice  which  makes 
our  vision  poor. 

Now  the  great  Physician,  in  the  passage  under  con- 
sideration, offers  a  remedy  for  defective  spiritual  vision. 
It  is  to  hold  such  broad,  inclusive  views  that  they  cannot 
exclude  light.  In  other  words  he  wants  us  to  look  out 
upon  life  from  the  viewpoint  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven. 

In  obtaining  this  viewpoint  the  principles  which  we 
have  so  often  noted  as  essential  must  be  considered  once 
more.  For  one  of  the  main  causes  of  defective  spiritual 
vision  is  self-exaltation.  The  man  of  poor  sight  lets  his 
petty  prejudices  dominate.  He  actually  is  abased  by 
exalting  his  weaknesses.  But  he  that  abases  himself  shall 
be  exalted  to  the  true,  clear  outlook  upon  life.  He  who 
becomes  like  a  little  child,  eager  to  see  and  to  learn  more, 
capable  of  unlimited  growth  in  comprehension,  is  neces- 
sarily one  whose  whole  body  shall  be  full  of  light. 

Then  there  is  that  other  fundamental  principle  of  the 


112  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

Gospel — the  principle  of  love — which  is  always  a  light- 
giving  element.  For  in  spite  of  the  cynicism  which  feels 
that  love  is  blind  it  is  the  most  obvious  teaching  of  ex- 
perience that  love  alone  can  find  the  whole  truth.  A 
quarrel  is  invariably  a  misunderstanding,  and  a  man  can 
never  justly  estimate  the  worth  of  one  whom  he  hates. 
The  all-inclusive  love  of  the  citizen  of  the  Heavenly 
Realm  is  all-illuminating  too;  and  love  makes  one  un- 
derstand the  point  of  view  of  him  with  whom  he  dis- 
agrees. 

It  is  one's  love  of  any  subject  moreover  which  gives 
him  his  insight.  The  great  chemist  is  enamored  of  chem- 
istry, the  great  artist  adores  art,  and  the  great  saint  loses 
himself  in  rapture  with  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven. 

Therefore  the  passage  before  us  begins  with  the  idea 
of  the  heart  interest  as  the  illuminating  center.  "Do  not 
store  up  treasures  upon  earth  .  .  .  but  store  up  for 
yourselves  treasures  in  heaven  .  .  .  for  where  your  treas- 
ure is  there  shall  also  be  your  heart." 


This  whole  theory  of  the  heavenly  light  works  out  thor- 
oughly in  life  and  it  accounts  for  the  phenomenon  noted 
in  the  Introduction  that  man's  highest  expression  of  him- 
self has  invariably  been  a  religious  expression.  The  great- 
est poems,  pictures,  buildings,  musical  compositions  and 
the  like  have  been  religious  because  the  fullest  illumina- 
tion of  man  is  the  religious  illumination. 

The  next  chapter  will  have  a  great  deal  to  do  with 
those  facts  which  show  up  the  world  as  unlovely  and 
unilluminating  while  the  Kingdom  is  the  source  of  light. 


GOD  AND  MAMMON 


NO  ONE  IS  ABLE  TO  SERVE  TWO  LORDS:  FOR  EITHER 
HE  WILL  HATE  THE  ONE  AND  LOVE  THE  OTHER,  OR  HE 
WILL  HOLD  TO  ONE  AND  DESPISE  THE  OTHER.  YOU  ARE 
NOT  ABLE  TO  SERVE  GOD  AND  MAMMON. 

(Matthew  VI:  24.) 


CHAPTER  VIII 

GOD  AND  MAMMON 

THE  last  chapter  discussed  the  fact  that  one's  heart 
interests  determine  his  understanding.     It  is  the 
essence  of  sanity  that  one's  understanding  should 
determine  his  conduct:  and  Jesus  would  heartily  assent 
to  the  old  saying: — "Out  of  the  heart  proceed   all  the 
issues  of  life." 

Having  expressed  this  truth  in  the  words: — "Where 
your  treasure  is  there  shall  also  be  your  heart,"  He  re- 
iterates the  thought  in  the  words: — "No  one  is  able  to 
serve  two  lords:  for  either  he  will  hate  the  one  and  love 
the  other,  or  he  will  hold  to  one  and  despise  the  other." 
All  human  experience  goes  to  emphasize  this  fact;  and 
that  which  we  consider  success  in  life  depends  upon  our 
service  to  some  dominant  motive. 

This  necessitates,  absolutely,  the  subordination  of  other 
interests.  A  man  cannot  build  up  a  large  commercial 
establishment  and  at  the  same  time  become  a  great  artist 
or  musician.  If  he  intends  to  build  up  the  commercial 
establishment,  he  cannot  have  time  for  the  incessant  study 
and  practice  necessary  in  musical  or  artistic  mastery.  To 
be  sure  an  Ibsen  or  a  Shakespeare,  with  fortune  unusual 
to  great  artists,  may  amass  considerable  wealth.  But  in 
the  case  of  each  of  these  poets  his  fortune  was  made  in 
the  theatrical  business — a  by-product,  so  to  say,  of  his 
heart  interest,  the  drama.  In  the  case  of  Ibsen  more- 
over it  seems  clear  that  financial  interests  interfered  with 
the  development  of  his  unsurpassed  genius  for  poetical 

115 


116  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

expression:  for  perfect  of  their  kind  as  were  his  problem 
plays,  it  is  hard  not  to  feel  that  the  vast  financial  return 
from  that  type  of  writing  led  him  to  withdraw  his  ener- 
gies from  that  exalted  form  of  poetry  of  which  Brand 
and  Peer  Gynt  prove  him  to  have  been  a  master.  On 
the  same  principle  it  is  said  that  one  of  our  most  popular 
moving  picture  Merry  Andrews  sacrificed  a  great  career 
as  a  real  comedian  to  the  fabulous  wealth  that  lies  in  his 
inferior  course.  There  can  be  only  one  controlling  in- 
terest in  a  person's  life. 

The  illustration  of  this  fact  which  Jesus  gives  is  the 
most  thoroughgoing  and  compelling  that  could  be  given : — 
"You  are  not  able  to  serve  God  and  Mammon."  At  no 
other  point  is  the  Master  more  explicit  than  here;  and 
at  few  points  do  His  disciples  take  Him  less  seriously 
at  His  word.  It  is  probable  that  more  sermons  are 
preached,  with  the  purpose,  perhaps  not  always  deliberate, 
of  reconciling  service  of  Mammon  with  service  of  God, 
than  are  preached  with  a  view  to  setting  forth  the 
Saviour's  hard  and  fast  meaning  as  contained  in  these 
words. 

But  that  clear  and  unmistakable  meaning  must  be  com- 
prehended by  any  one  who  is  to  appreciate  the  Gospel 
of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  For  here  is  perhaps  the 
finest  of  the  New  Testament  distinctions  between  the 
spiritual  and  the  material,  the  Spirit  and  the  flesh,  the 
Kingdom  and  the  world.  God  is  the  Spirit,  Mammon 
is  the  flesh;  the  Kingdom  is  God's  service,  the  world  is 
Mammon's  service.  We  are  therefore  at  the  simplest  point 
of  the  Simple  Gospel. 

It  is  true,  we  must  admit,  that  the  exact  derivation 
of  the  word  Mammon  has  never  been  cleared  up  to  the 
absolute  satisfaction  of  all  scholars:  and  yet  there  is  no 
question  that  the  underlying  idea  of  the  term  is  the  wealth 


GOD  AND  MAMMON  117 

that  means  more  to  the  average  man  than  do  spiritual 
things,  and  which,  in  modern  slang,  is  called  the  Almighty 
Dollar. 

It  is  easy  to  ignore  the  justification  for  such  a  term; 
and  there  are  very  few  intelligent  men  who  cannot  make 
a  more  or  less  convincing  argument  to  the  effect  that  per- 
sonal gain  need  not  interfere  with  public  welfare,  or  that 
one's  personal  advancement  and  the  good  of  the  community 
are  one  and  the  same.  Nevertheless  there  is  an  eternal 
distinction,  leading  to  infinitely  different  results,  between 
making  the  service  of  Mammon  and  making  the  service 
of  God  the  first  interest  of  the  heart.  The  entire  per- 
sonal, political,  social,  and  religious  welfare  of  men  is 
affected  by  that  distinction. 

For  practical  purposes  we  can  put  the  distinction  in 
the  most  familiar  terms  and  consider  it  as  that  between 
men  and  money.  Because  in  this  world  all  that  makes 
for  the  highest  development  of  human  life  and  character 
is  the  truest  service  of  God  and  all  that  puts  first  the 
private  accumulation  of  money  is  the  service  of  Mammon. 

The  first  proposition  is  taken  for  granted  in  all  the 
teaching  of  Jesus.  Loving  service  to  one's  fellow  men 
is  actual  service  of  God.  "Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy 
God  with  all  thy  heart,  with  all  thy  soul,  and  with  all  thy 
mind;  this  is  the  first  and  great  commandment,  and  the 
second  is  like  unto  (or  identical  with)  it ;  Thou  shalt  love 
thy  neighbor  as  thyself."  "Inasmuch  as  ye  have  done 
it  unto  the  least  of  these  my  brethren,"  says  the  King, 
"ye  have  done  it  unto  Me." 

The  second  proposition  ought  to  be  fully  as  clear  be- 
cause it  is  a  matter  upon  which  the  New  Testament  has 
a  great  deal  to  say  and  all  of  it  to  the  same  effect.  There 
never  has  been  and  there  never  can  be  anything  more 
radical  said  with  regard  to  money  than  the  words  of 


118  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

Jesus  concerning  it.  In  His  view  deceitfulness  is  a  qual- 
ity inherent  in  riches.  (Matt.  XIII:  22)  In  the  parable 
of  the  rich  man  and  Lazarus  the  rich  man  seems  to  be  in 
Hell  solely  because  of  the  effect  of  riches  upon  his  char- 
acter. There  is  no  valid  reason,  moreover,  for  supposing 
that  the  average  camel,  and  the  average  rich  man,  and  the 
average  needle's  eye  are  not  meant  when  it  is  said  that 
it  is  easier  for  a  camel  to  go  through  the  eye  of  a  needle 
than  for  a  rich  man  to  enter  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven. 
The  rich  man  went  away  sorrowful  "because  he  had  great 
possessions."  These  varied  passages  occurring  through- 
out the  Synoptic  Gospels  make  it  seem  unlikely  that  St. 
Luke  (as  is  so  often  maintained)  overemphasizes  the  Gos- 
pel teaching  of  the  spiritual  superiority  of  the  poor.  The 
other  Gospels  contain  nothing  out  of  keeping  with  St. 
Luke's  "Woe  unto  you  that  are  rich." 

Perhaps  there  is  no  stronger  reason  for  this  point  of 
view  everywhere  maintained  by  Jesus,  than  the  fact  that 
riches,  as  a  rule,  give  their  possessors  feelings  of  undue 
exaltation  above  their  fellows.  Not  to  mention  the  troop 
of  menial  servants,  generally  in  uniform  to  emphasize 
their  subjection,  which  the  rich  man  has  around  him,  he  is 
usually  fawned  upon  by  a  host  of  courtiers,  flattering  him 
in  every  way,  losing  no  chance  to  express  their  admira- 
tion which  is  very  likely  to  be  genuine.  One  in  such  an 
environment  can  hardly  help  thinking  of  himself  more 
highly  than  he  ought  to  think.  It  is  not  natural  for  one 
to  consider  as  brothers  either  those  who  serve  him  as 
menials  or  those  who  fawn  upon  him  as  if  they  considered 
him  a  being  of  a  different  mold. 

But  whatever  the  theoretical  reasons  may  be,  the  actual 
fact  is  obvious:  the  accretion  of  riches  does  make  against 
all  feelings  of  brotherhood.  When  the  point  of  view  is 
determined  by  desire  for  increased  dividends — ever  en- 


GOD  AND  MAMMON  119 

larging  private  fortune — the  service  of  others  which  is 
the  service  of  God  cannot  have  first  place.  If  financial 
profits  make  up  the  chief  aim  of  a  business  system — and 
no  sane  man  can  doubt  that  profits  make  up  the  chief  aim 
of  the  now  prevailing  business  system — it  must  always  be 
the  endeavor  of  the  employer  of  labor  to  get  as  much  out 
of  and  give  as  little  to  his  employees  as  possible.  It  may 
be  an  exaggeration  for  the  preamble  of  the  I.W.W.  Con- 
stitution to  assert  that  capital  and  labor  can  have  no 
common  interests;  but  it  is  absolutely  true  that,  under 
a  system  which  is  based  on  the  preeminence  of  profits  over 
service,  there  must  always  be  between  employer  and  em- 
ployee a  thoroughgoing  conflict  of  their  most  vital  in- 
terests. It  frequently  may  be  to  the  interest  of  employers 
to  have  their  employees  well  fed  and  clothed;  they  can 
usually  get  enough  more  out  of  them,  when  they  are  so 
circumstanced,  to  pay  liberally  for  the  cost  of  their  food 
and  clothes :  as  the  labor  unions  gain  more  strength  it  will 
be  good  policy  for  the  master  of  labor  to  keep  his  men 
as  contented  as  he  can:  and  yet  the  more  he  can  get  out 
of  them  and  the  less  he  has  to  give  them  the  larger  will 
be  that  private  fortune  by  which  his  success  in  life  is 
commonly  judged.  For  the  amount  of  individual  wealth 
which  he  can  withhold  from  the  common  wealth  is  the 
measure  of  the  modern  man's  achievement.  The  whole 
zest  of  present-day  business  practice  lies  in  each  man's 
trying  to  see  how  much  the  better  he  can  get  of  his 
fellows. 

That  is  what  Jesus  means  by  the  service  of  Mammon: 
and  the  actual  results  of  that  service  would,  if  properly 
understood,  turn  all  good-hearted  men  to  the  service  of 
God.  For  Mammon-worship  leaves  a  ghastly  trail  over 
the  entire  expanse  of  civilization.  It  crushes  relentlessly 
all  that  is  best  in  human  life. 


120  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

It  is  strange  how  those  who  profess  faith  in  Jesus 
Christ  can  ignore  this  fact.  We  shudder  when  we  think 
of  the  women  of  India  throwing  their  children  into  the 
Ganges;  and  yet  we  are  perfectly  calm  when  we  think 
of  the  American  sacrifices  made  to  Mammon  through  such 
channels  as  child  labor.  It  would  seem  that  in  a  civiliza- 
tion slightly  influenced  by  the  Simple  Gospel  merely  to 
explain  the  conditions  of  child  labor  ought  to  be  enough 
to  arouse  the  overwhelming  power  of  the  community 
against  it;  but  any  legislation  proposed  with  a  purpose 
of  suppressing  that  evil  is  passed,  if  at  all,  only  after  a 
long  and  severe  struggle.  The  whole  spirit  of  American 
business  fights  against  such  legislation  with  all  the  force 
that  Mammon  can  command:  legislators  are  bribed  and 
expensive  court  processes  are  used  to  the  utmost  before 
those  who  profit  by  the  sacrifice  of  children  to  Mammon 
will  renounce  the  fruits  of  such  sacrifice. 

But  child  labor  is  not  a  unique  evil  in  a  Mammon- 
worshipping  civilization.  That  type  of  civilization  every- 
where makes  for  the  deterioration  of  human  beings  in 
order  to  gather  superior  accretions  of  material  wealth. 

This  is  the  whole  point  of  the  history  of  organized 
labor  and  all  other  institutions  vitally  interested  in  the 
improvement  of  the  conditions  of  living  among  working 
people.  Every  slightest  gain  in  the  improvement  of  the 
conditions  of  labor  is  made  only  by  the  most  strenuous 
effort  against  the  bitterest  opposition.  The  servants  of 
Mammon  have  always  fought  vigorously  the  will  of  God. 

The  list  of  examples  of  this  truth  is  as  long  as  the  list 
of  cases  in  which  improvement  in  conditions  has  been 
sought.  One  might  possibly  find  a  few  exceptions  but  the 
almost  invariable  rule  is  that  every  law  making  for  the 
betterment  of  the  laborer's  surroundings,  when  it  costs 
the  employer  anything,  is  contested  as  tenaciously  as  pos- 


GOD  AND  MAMMON  121 

sible  by  the  employing  corporations.  If,  for  illustration, 
it  is  discovered  that  the  death  rate  among  metal  polishers 
can  be  greatly  reduced  by  installing  little  fans  which  will 
blow  the  fatal  dust  away  from  the  worker  and  keep  him 
from  inhaling  it,  any  righteous  government  on  learning 
of  that  discovery,  must  demand  that  such  fans  be  used 
in  all  polishing  rooms.  But  when  laws  to  this  effect 
have  been  brought  before  any  legislature  the  owners  of 
the  metal  polishing  industry  have  brought  to  bear  all  the 
pressure  that  they  could  exert  by  bribery,  intimidation 
and  coercion  in  order  to  defeat  their  passage.  The  serv- 
ants of  Mammon  can  always  be  counted  upon  to  do  all  in 
their  power  to  prevent  legislatures  from  rendering  social 
service  to  God. 

No  one  can  doubt  this  who  has  followed  the  efforts  of 
good  men  to  secure  legislation  against  the  deadly  processes 
of  manufacturing  the  phosphorous  match  and  white  lead. 
Nor  can  any  one  doubt  it  who  has  followed  the  history 
of  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  harmful  patent  medicines 
or  of  the  adulteration  of  food  products  with  deleterious 
and  poisonous  substances,  both  of  which  social  sins  have 
maintained  such  a  large,  wealthy  and  influential  backing 
that  the  mildest  laws  in  opposition  could  be  passed  only 
after  a  hard  struggle. 

But  the  multitudinous  variety  of  similar  facts  which 
leave  no  room  for  doubt  that  business,  looking  primarily 
to  profits,  makes  against  social  welfare,  is  too  great  to 
be  detailed  in  a  single  volume.  No  doubt  unthinking 
persons  might  object  that  the  widespread  Safety  First 
movement  proves  a  rather  general  concern  on  the  part 
of  employers  for  the  welfare  of  employees.  Great  cor- 
porations, so  we  are  reminded,  spend  vast  sums  for  safety" 
devices  in  mines,  factories,  and  railroad  systems,  and 
for  instructing  workmen  how  to  protect  themselves  from 


122  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

the  dangers  inherent  in  daily  toil.  But  such  carefulness 
on  the  part  of  employers  never  developed  until  after  the 
passage  of  workmen's  compensation  laws  which  made  the 
destruction  of  life  and  limb  much  more  costly  to  the 
masters  of  industry  than  is  the  Safety  First  campaign. 
The  vital  statistics  of  any  mining  community  would  show 
that  before  workmen's  compensation  laws  were  passed  a 
ruthless  indifference  to  accident  and  death  befalling  the 
miners  went  on  year  after  year  without  the  slightest  effort 
toward  reform  on  the  part  of  mine  owners.  The  history 
of  the  legislature  in  any  mining  state,  moreover,  will  show 
the  bitterest  opposition  on  the  part  of  mining  corporations 
to  have  been  exerted  against  any  legislation  intending  to 
make  such  accidents  costly  to  them.  However,  when  the 
passage  of  these  laws  was  secured  a  thousand  and  one 
ways  were  immediately  discovered  by  which  the  larger 
number  of  serious  accidents — now  matters  of  financial  loss 
— were  easily  eliminated.  The  companies  never  acted 
when  God  was  wronged;  they  crucified  humanity  con- 
tinually; but  when  Mammon  was  involved  they  acted  at 
once. 

It  is  obvious,  then,  that  the  heart  of  modern  business 
is  primarily  set  upon  laying  up  treasures  on  earth;  and 
we  noted  in  the  last  chapter  that  it  is  of  the  intrinsic 
nature  of  the  earth  that  one  being  shall  appropriate  to 
himself  as  much  as  he  can  of  the  common  material  wealth. 
The  biological  law  of  endless  struggle  for  existence  has 
its  economic  counterpart  in  the  sacred  law  of  Mammon 
that  competition  is  the  life  of  trade. 

In  modern  times,  no  doubt,  we  have  learned  that  in 
a  certain  sense  it  is  the  nature  of  competition  to  destroy 
itself.  Free  competition,  which  in  its  nature  is  anarchy, 
gives  the  superior  business  genius  an  opportunity  to  ex- 
pand his  operations  to  such  an  extent  that  he  holds  all 


GOD  AND  MAMMON  123 

his  competitors  at  his  mercy:  and  that  is  the  result  of 
the  last  development  in  business  life — the  trust. 

But  while  the  trust  eliminates  at  will  any  competition 
in  the  mastery  of  its  field,  there  is  a  constant  struggle 
for  leadership  within  the  trust  itself.  Those  working  for 
the  trust  are  continually  striving  to  outdo  each  other,  all 
seeking  the  positions  of  greatest  influence  and  largest 
financial  return.  Each  man  still  wants  all  that  he  can 
get  without  regard  to  the  amount  of  which  he  may  de- 
prive others.  The  struggle  may  and  does  develop  coopera- 
tive groups,  but  competition  goes  on  within  the  groups, 
and  the  groups  themselves  become  predatory.  The  strug- 
gle always  persists. 

In  the  struggle  it  is  especially  advantageous  to  the  trust 
to  keep  labor  as  competitive  as  possible.  No  student  of 
this  branch  of  the  service  of  Mammon  doubts  that  there 
has  been  a  deliberate  endeavor  by  those  who  profit  by 
the  condition  to  foster  a  large  amount  of  unemployment 
in  order  that  the  competition  for  jobs  may  keep  labor 
inexpensive.  There  has  been  a  definite  aim,  concealed 
by  the  specious  virtue  of  maintaining  the  freedom  of  con- 
tract, to  make  each  worker  see  how  cheaply  he  can  sell 
his  labor  and  still  hold  body  and  soul  together.  That  is 
to  say  the  whole  tendency  of  labor  competition  is  to  main- 
tain human  life  at  the  lowest  standards  compatible  with 
any  existence  whatever.  No  matter  whether,  in  the  sin- 
gleness of  his  economic  vision,  Marx  may  have  been  ob- 
livious to  certain  elements  in  value,  there  cannot  be  the 
remotest  doubt  that  it  has  been  the  principle  of  modern 
industry  to  get  the  greatest  possible  contribution  from 
the  laborer  while  giving  him  the  least  possible  re- 
turn. 

Thus  the  tendency  of  modern  industry  from  end  to  end 
is  the  self-aggrandizement  of  the  few  at  the  expense  of 


124  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

the  many.  It  is  utterly  incompatible  with  the  rule  of 
doing  unto  others  as  you  would  have  them  do  to  you. 
Obviously  there  is  no  room  here  for  the  full  expression 
of  the  fundamental  Christian  virtue  of  love:  and  while 
there  are  undoubtedly  men  in  business  who  are  more  or 
less  deeply  moved  by  the  Christian  ideal,  their  ideal  has 
not  prevailed  in  the  system  of  business. 

Therefore  the  earth's  course  of  business  life  has  re- 
sulted in  the  perversion  of  all  Heavenly  ways.  The  slight- 
est willingness  to  do  unto  others  as  one  would  have  them 
do  unto  him  would  have  made  corporations  construct 
safety  appliances  for  their  workers  without  being  forced 
to  do  so.  The  remotest  approach  to  Christian  love  would 
never  have  been  willing  to  profit  by  grinding  out  the  lives 
of  weak  women  and  young  children  in  hard,  indecently 
requited  toil. 

In  dealing  with  this  lack  of  Christian  feeling  the  Sim- 
ple Gospel  is  naturally  more  severe  than  is  the,  so  con- 
sidered, scientific  type  of  revolutionary  thought.  The 
latter,  as  we  have  seen,  says  that  these  horrors  are  merely 
the  result  of  the  economic  system;  but  the  Simple  Gospel 
maintains  that  the  evils  are  the  result  of  damnable  sin. 
It  has  to  apply  the  principle  brought  out  in  Chapter  IV: 
it  takes  for  granted  that  the  man  who  is  willing  to  profit 
by  unsanitary  and  unsafe  conditions  in  the  toil  of  those 
who  work  to  increase  his  private  wealth  is  of  the  same 
essential  character  with  the  thug  and  brutal  assaulter, 
lacking  only  their  courage.  To  the  extent  that  he  is 
willing  to  let  women  and  children  suffer  and  die  need- 
lessly to  his  individual  profit,  he  has  the  character  of  a 
murderer;  and  none  of  the  laws  of  men  and  none  of  the 
interpretations  of  those  laws  by  human  courts  can  change 
the  attitude  of  God  in  the  matter  for  an  instant. 

But  there  is  this  truth  in  the  belief  of  the  scientific 


GOD  AND  MAMMON  125 

Socialist  that  our  economic  system  is  entirely  to  blame 
for  the  unhappy  conditions  in  society — the  truth  that  the 
worship  of  Mammon,  the  desire  for  undue  wealth,  is  the 
sinful  lust  out  of  which  these  evident  social  sins  grow. 
The  love  of  money  is  the  root  of  all  evil.  Mammon-wor- 
ship is  in  reality  that  self-exaltation  which  in  divine  Jus- 
tice must  be  abased — that  saving  of  one's  life  which  is 
eternal  loss. 

The  service  of  God,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  self-abase- 
ment that  really  exalts,  and  the  losing  of  self  that  actually 
saves.  As  we  have  just  noted,  it  is  identical  with  the 
service  of  our  fellow  men.  If  such  service  became  the 
main  aim  of  business,  instead  of  being  one  of  the  demands 
with  which  business  for  its  self-preservation  has  grudg- 
ingly to  reckon,  there  would  be  a  most  profound  revolution 
in  society.  For  then  leaders  in  business  would  vie  with 
each  other  to  make  goods  as  cheap  and  as  durable  as 
they  could,  at  the  same  time  giving  every  care  to  maintain 
the  best  possible  conditions  of  toil  in  the  actual  produc- 
tion of  those  goods.  Food  would  as  a  matter  of  course 
become  as  wholesome,  pure,  palatable,  and  procurable  as 
human  ingenuity  could  make  it:  clothing  would  become 
as  serviceable  and  inexpensive  as  natural  conditions  would 
allow.  In  other  words  human  service  would  take  the  place 
of  economic  gain. 

In  the  terms  of  modern  economic  revolt  the  Proletariat 
would  be  freed  from  the  Bourgeoisie.  For,  without  at- 
tempting to  define  uncharted  or  only  partially  charted 
regions  of  economics  with  mathematical  exactness,  the 
New  Testament  distinction  between  service  of  Mammon 
and  service  of  God,  bound  up  as  it  is  with  the  severe 
words  concerning  the  rich  and  the  high  praise  of  those 
who  in  spirit  are  poor,  approaches  closely  the  very  real 
distinction  between  bourgeoise  and  proletarian  interests. 


126  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

At  all  events  the  bourgeoise  (shop  keeper)  class  is  the 
Mammon-worshipping  class.  For  the  average  business  man 
frankly  admits  that  his  vocation  is  not  in  harmony  with 
ideal  righteousness ;  and  when  he  is  asked  to  do  something 
finely  righteous  but  not  legally  requisite  in  business  he 
is  very  likely  to  remark  that  "he  is  not  in  business  for 
his*  health."  The  generally  accepted  practices  of  business 
have  never  approached  the  lowest  possible  interpretation 
of  Christian  righteousness;  and  there  can  be  no  question 
but  that  a  man  who  has  attained  business  success  by  using 
occasionally  some  petty  deception  or,  so  considered,  venial 
trickery  is  held  by  the  majority  in  higher  actual  esteem 
than  is  the  man  who  because  of  refusing  to  stoop  to  such 
methods  has  gone  down  to  failure  in  so  far  as  the  Mam- 
mon of  unrighteousness  is  concerned. 

Indeed,  is  it  not  true  that  bourgeoise  thought,  in  spite 
of  Jesus'  obvious  teaching  as  to  the  spiritual  superiority 
of  the  poor,  tends  to  attribute  the  major  portion  of  busi- 
ness failure  to  moral  inadequacy?  Is  it  not  taken  for 
granted  by  the  general  run  of,  so  called,  successful  men 
in  our  time  that  there  is  something  morally  wrong — some 
failure  to  exert  a  sturdy,  economic  virtue — in  every  per- 
son who  is  not  successful  from  the  materialistic  point  of 
view?  On  the  other  hand  is  there  any  general  sympathy 
with  the  Christian  doctrine  that  in  the  eternal  judgment 
a  person's  amassing  of  wealth  will  be  subjected  to  vastly 
more  humiliating  scrutiny  than  will  a  person's  failure  to 
amass  wealth? 

And  yet  the  Mammon-worshipping,  bourgeoise  system 
carries  with  it  its  own  obvious  condemnation.  This  fact 
will  be  the  more  clear  if  we  recall  the  truth,  dwelt  upon 
at  such  length  in  this  volume,  that  religion — the  realm 
of  the  spiritual — has  always  expressed  itself  in  the  most 
consummate  beauty  known  to  the  world  whether  we  look 


GOD  AKD  MAMMON  127 

for  that  expression  in  music,  art,  architecture,  or  litera- 
ture; that  the  service  of  God  leads  to  the  fullest,  most 
completely  beautiful  expression  of  human  energy;  that 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  the  freest  conceivable  develop- 
ment of  creative,  personal  power.  For  then  the  contrast 
with  the  blighting,  blasting  suppression  of  fine  human 
energy  on  the  part  of  our  financial,  mercantile  system 
will  appear  in  all  its  sharpness. 

We  have  noted  already  the  natural  tendency  of  the 
Mammon-worshipping,  bourgeoise  class  to  be  willing  to 
destroy  life  and  limb  even  to  the  extent  of  devastating 
childhood  and  womanhood  for  its  own  advantage.  We 
have  touched  upon  the  fact  that  many  have  been  content 
to  profit  by  the  sale  of  impure  or  dangerous  medicines 
and  foods.  We  might  have  added  the  desire  of  thousands 
to  amass  wealth  through  the  sale  and  manufacture  of 
alcoholic  drink — a  business  which,  whether  or  not  it  could 
have  been  made  harmless,  actually  was  a  holocaust  of 
human  interests  and  human  beings,  giving  not  the  remotest 
reason  to  expect  that  any  great  improvement  in  its  con- 
ditions would  ever  take  place.  For  in  the  realm  of  Mam- 
mon dividends  are  sacred  and  persons  are  of  value  only 
as  producers  of  dividends. 

Thus  since  the  private  accretion  of  wealth  is  the  main 
end  of  Mammon-worship,  all  other  interests  are  sacrificed 
to  any  extent  necessary  in  accomplishing  that  aim.  There 
is  no  department  of  life  that  has  not  felt  its  devastating 
scourge.  All  the  beauty  and  cleanliness  of  the  world  are 
besmirched  and  befouled  in  the  name  of  Mammon. 

To  realize  how  true  this  is  in  America  we  have  but 
to  consider  the  costly  ravages  of  Mammonism  upon  the 
natural  resources  of  the  commonwealth.  The  lumber  in- 
dustry, for  example,  is  particularly  destructive  in  its  re- 
moval of  vast  areas  of  standing  timber  without  planting 


128  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

new  trees,  in  this  way  not  only  wasting  lumber  resources 
but  also  drying  up  water  supplies.  Then  there  is  the 
overcrowding  of  stock  on  grazing  lands — the  ghastly  en- 
deavor to  make  the  vegetation  in  a  given  region  feed 
more  sheep  and  cattle  than  can  be  properly  accommodated. 
Similarly  a  great  strain  is  put  upon  cultivated  soil  in 
some  sections  by  a  constant  succession  of  a  single  type  of 
crop  which  happens  to  have  a  long  period  of  high  prices ; 
and  it  is  thought  that  a  fall  in  cotton  prices  was  all  that 
saved  vast  areas  of  cotton  land  in  the  Southwest. 

Being  willing  thus  to  devastate  the  substance  of  life, 
Mammon-worship  is  of  course  indifferent  to  the  blight 
that  it  puts  upon  the  finer  expressions  of  life:  and  a  state 
dominated  by  the  Bourgeoisie  is  necessarily  characterized 
by  the  common  American  manifestations  of  mercantilism. 
The  blight  falls  first  upon  family  life;  and  the  central 
impulse  of  Mammon-worship  to  secure  cheaply  and  sell 
dearly  tends  to  lower  wages  to  a  point  at  which  family 
life  can  be  only  the  abomination  of  desolation  or  cannot 
be  maintained  at  all.  The  Socialist  may  well  laugh  in 
derision  when  the  Mammon-worshipper  prates  of  Socialism 
as  an  endeavor  to  destroy  the  family. 

After  exerting  his  Hellish  destructiveness  upon  the  fam- 
ily Mammon  reaches  out  to  the  educational  system.  Fam- 
ily poverty  makes  it  necessary  for  the  more  alert  mem- 
bers of  many  households  (or  rather  tenementholds)  to 
leave  school  with  a  woefully  incomplete  education;  and 
no  one  unacquainted  with  the  poorer  districts  of  our  cities 
can  begin  to  realize  the  number  of  splendid  intellects 
wasted  by  taking  boys  and  girls  of  brilliant  mentality  out 
of  school  in  order  that  their  families  may  be  partially 
supported  and  their  employers  unduly  profited  by  their 
work.  But  besides  this  special  loss  of  the  trained  minds 
of  the  unusually  gifted  there  is  a  lowering  of  the  average 


GOD  AKD  MAMMON  129 

mentality  by  using  up  young  life  prematurely  in  grinding 
toil. 

Further  we  have  to  take  into  account  all  the  sinister 
interferences  with  the  promulgation  of  truth  which  work 
against  true  education.  Far  too  often  unclean  politics 
dominated  by  selfish  business  interests  control  the  election 
of  the  school  superintendent :  and  he  in  turn  superintends 
the  public  instruction  in  such  a  way  as  to  eliminate  any 
teaching  that  is  unsatisfactory  to  those  who  have  placed 
him  in  control.  The  very  text-books  given  to  the  children 
are  often  edited  with  the  purpose  of  fixing  in  their  readers' 
minds  a  prejudiced  point  of  view.  It  can  hardly  be  sup- 
posed that  the  Pan-German  propaganda  discovered  in  the 
schools  of  certain  American  cities  at  the  time  of  the 
war  is  the  only  case  of  bringing  undue  influence  to  bear 
on  the  prejudices  of  school  children.  Rare  indeed  is  the 
public  school  text-book  in  history  or  in  civics  which  does 
not  try  to  make  the  student  feel  that  certain  things  are 
true  rather  than  develop  in  him  an  inquiring  mind. 

The  spirit  that  fosters  such  conditions  in  the  lower 
grades  tries  in  the  colleges  and  universities  to  interfere 
with  academic  freedom  for  the  great  teachers.  We  can 
exaggerate  in  our  imagination  the  extent  of  this  vicious 
condition;  but  it  is  no  longer  possible  to  doubt  that  the 
condition  does  exist:  too  many  sincere  and  brilliant  in- 
tellects, holding  advanced  positions,  have  been  retired  from 
their  chairs  to  make  it  possible  to  doubt  that  academic 
freedom  is  seriously  menaced. 

It  would  be  hard  to  determine  whether  the  menace  is 
worse  in  the  private  institutions  or  in  the  state  owned 
colleges  and  universities.  Wealthy  donors  to  private  in- 
stitutions can  sometimes  exert  a  sinister  influence:  but 
the  great  business  corporations  which  generally  dominate 
and  sometimes  absolutely  control  the  state  governments 


130  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

bring  to  bear  a  tremendous  pressure  on  the  public  educa- 
tional system  from  top  to  bottom.  The  toddler  in  kinder- 
garten is  started  on  the  play  song  "Soldier  boy,  soldier 
boy,  where  are  you  going";  and  the  college  or  university 
student,  in  his  history  and  economics  classes,  is  not  very 
vigorously  reminded  that  soldier  boy  is  most  likely  to  be 
going  into  Mexico  in  order  to  fight  for  the  none  too  fairly 
acquired  estates  of  some  newspaper  king  or  some  cabinet 
officer. 

All  this  of  course  makes  for  the  popular  misunderstand- 
ing of  truth ;  but  the  comprehension  of  truth  is  necessary 
in  a  people  that  would  govern  itself.  The  Johannine  pas- 
sage which  asserts  that  "the  truth  shall  make  you  free" 
is  eternally  right.  Any  large  development  of  invisible 
government  will  destroy  democracy,  and  invisible  govern- 
ment can  be  overthrown  only  by  an  electorate  acquainted 
with  facts. 

The  institution  charged  with  the  heaviest  responsibility 
in  acquainting  us  with  facts  is  the  periodical  press:  and 
here  Mammon  often  plays  havoc.  The  manipulation  of 
periodical  literature  to  suit  the  views  of  its  advertisers, 
the  emphasis  of  facts  and  ideas  favorable  to  the  owners 
of  newspapers  and  periodicals  together  with  the  distortion 
and  suppression  of  facts  not  pleasing  to  them,  and  the 
disingenuous  machinations  of  the  great  bureaus  ostensibly 
devoted  to  the  promulgation  of  news  make  modern  journal- 
ism one  of  the  most  striking  examples  of  the  devitalizing 
influence  of  Mammon-worship. 

But  it  affects  the  more  dignified  literature  in  the  same 
devastating  manner.  The  best  selling  novels  and  popular 
plays,  which  are  usually  poor,  are  not  given  their  place 
in  the  popular  estimation  by  the  unprejudiced  convictions 
of  free  choice,  but  rather  by  the  hypnotic  influence  of  de- 
ceptive advertisement.  The  free  democracy  of  Athena  by 


GOD  AND  MAMMON  131 

popular  vote  chose  instinctively  the  plays  of  ^Eschylus, 
Sophocles,  and  Euripides  as  worthy  the  honors  given  to 
poets  when  democracy  is  genuine:  and  those  best  able  to 
judge  still  consider  the  taste  of  the  butchers,  bakers  and 
candle-stick  makers  of  ancient,  democratic  Athens  to  have 
been  catholic  taste.  The  bad  taste  of  the  modern  populace 
is  not  due,  as  our  ignorant  dilettanti  imagine,  to  the  spread 
of  democratic  ideas  but  to  the  suppression  of  true  de- 
mocracy by  the  bourgeoise  artistocracy.  Intellectual,  spir- 
itual, and  esthetic  refinements  cannot  come  into  their  own 
in  a  materialistic  age. 

But  interference,  by  deceptive  advertisement,  with 
popular  taste  is  only  one  of  the  devilish  uses  to  which 
Mammon  puts  advertisement.  Satan  may  be  the  father 
of  lies  but,  if  so,  he  and  Mammon  are  the  same  because 
Mammon  is  the  father  of  advertisement;  and  advertise- 
ment is  so  thoroughly  deceitful  that  almost  every  con- 
vention of  advertising  men  that  meets  goes  on  record  as 
believing  that  something  ought  to  be  done  to  make  ad- 
vertisements more  reliable. 

Nevertheless  Mammon  continues  to  use  the  power  of 
psychological  suggestion  to  deceive  as  many  as  he  can. 
Such  an  utterly  inane  practice  as  chewing  gum  can  be 
made  an  unlimited  source  of  income  through  clever  lies 
as  to  its  healthfulness  published  in  electric  lights  on  city 
buildings  and  on  billboards  that  scar  the  country  land- 
scapes. More  elk  hide  goods  are  advertised  for  sale  each 
year  than  all  the  elks  in  the  world  could  supply;  Porto 
Rican  tobacco  and  Javan  coffee  are  offered  in  such  quan- 
tities as  would  fit  the  productive  capacity  of  continents 
more  closely  than  that  of  the  tiny  islands  from  which 
that  tobacco  and  coffee  are  supposed  to  come;  and  count- 
less similar  falsehoods  have  become  the  commonplaces  of 
our  present-day  mercantilism.  They  are  taken  as  matters 


132  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

of  course  in  the  bourgeoise  ethics.  We  take  it  for  granted 
that  stuff  advertised  as  woolen  will  contain  a  large  ad- 
mixture of  cotton ;  and  we  are  not  surprised,  after  paying 
for  silk,  to  receive  a  silk  glucose  combination.  These  are 
nothing  compared  with  the  positively  murderous  lies  that 
advertise  whisky  as  beneficent  and  the  soothing  syrup  nar- 
cosis as  a  healthy  condition  for  infants.  Human  welfare 
all  along  the  line  has  to  be  sacrificed  to  Mammon. 

This  is  merely  saying  again  that  the  principle  of  Mam- 
mon-worship is  self-exaltation  at  the  expense  of  others. 
Modern  advertisement  is  a  perfect  expression  of  the  utter 
lack  of  that  self-abasement  which  Christ  makes  essential: 
and  we  cannot  reiterate  too  frequently  that  the  ideal  char- 
acter under  Mammonism  is  the  Superman  who  is  best 
illustrated  in  the  Trust  magnate — the  man  who  crushes 
out  all  that  stands  in  the  way  of  his  own  aggrandizement. 

Mammon,  therefore,  is  the  archenemy  of  that  livable- 
ness  of  life  which  it  is  the  purpose  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  to  establish.  He  undermines  health  and  physical 
strength ;  he  conceals  saving  and  emancipating  truth ;  and 
he  deforms  and  befouls  beauty. 

This  last  is  the  most  crushing  indictment  of  all  because, 
so  our  finest  instincts  would  indicate,  beauty  is  essential 
to  the  ultimate  expression  of  truth.  Whatever  may  be 
said  for  cubism,  futurism,  free  verse,  and  the  other  char- 
acteristic expressions  of  our  modern  spirit,  they  cannot  be 
said  to  make  for  loveliness.  Whatever  appeal  there  may 
be  in  the  picture  that  one  of  the  champions  of  free  verse 
gives  of  herself  in  the  bath  tub,  it  lacks  a  certain  quality 
inherent  in  the  orthodox,  classic  poems  about  nymphs 
around  a  sylvan  pool:  nor  is  it  easy  to  feel  that  there  is 
very  much  expression  of  reality  in  a  painting  which, 
though  it  is  definitely  intended  to  represent  "Nude  De- 
scending the  Stairs,"  looks  to  the  average  eye  like  what 


GOD  AND  MAMMON  133 

an  old-fashioned,  bigoted  critic  called  it — an  explosion  in 
a  shingle  factory. 

But  setting  aside  this  fact  and  cheerfully  granting  that 
the  mention  of  it  may  be  but  part  of  the  invariable  failure 
to  appreciate  new  excellence  which  has  always  character- 
ized conservative  criticism,  all  must  admit  that  bourgeoise, 
commercial  America  has  made  scant  attainment  in  art, 
literature,  or  music.  A  land  so  little  humanized  that  it 
allows  its  beautiful  landscapes  to  be  cluttered  with  huge 
signs  concerning  liver  pills  or  razor  blades  and  whose 
newspapers  do  not  know  the  use  of  the  mother  tongue, 
must  expect  to  have  its  novels  untrue  to  reality,  its  plays 
out  of  harmony  with  life,  and  its  music  lacking  in  dignity 
or  beauty. 

Under  such  circumstances  it  is  to  be  expected  that  the 
great  mass  of  professing  Christians  in  America  will  wor- 
ship in  crude  ways  and  in  unlovely  forms.  America  does 
not  worship  in  the  beauty  of  holiness  because  the  holy 
beauty  of  God  cannot  be  seen  in  an  impure,  Mammon- 
worshipping  society.  When  the  Kingdom  comes  the  ma- 
jority of  Christians  in  the  United  States  will  no  longer 
worship  in  buildings  of  hideous  design,  singing  doggerel 
hymns  to  tunes  that  are  musically  depraved. 

These  unwholesome  symptoms  are  akin  to  the  vulgarity 
— sometimes  actually  disgusting — which  we  have  come  to 
expect  in  the  preaching  of  the  popular  evangelist.  Crudity 
of  thought  and  expression,  slang,  slap-stick  comedy,  exe- 
crable grammar,  and  unsavory  allusions  make  up  the  stock 
in  trade  of  the  great  individualistic  evangelist. 

But  such  an  evangelist  is  apt  to  be  the  high  priest  of 
the  princes  of  Mammonism.  He  is  usually  sincere;  the 
passages  concerning  riches  never  occur  to  him  as  having 
any  bearing  on  his  own  amassing  of  wealth :  but  the  money 
power  coddles  him  and  supports  him  lavishly.  He  is  in 


134  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

no  danger  of  stepping  beyond  the  "neutral  zone"  in  the 
religious  discussion  of  social  problems;  and  during  the 
war  the  foremost  American  evangelist  of  this  type 
preached  a  bitter  partisan  hatred  in  utter  opposition  to 
the  passage  treated  in  Chapter  Five. 

The  whole  theory  of  the  cheaper  sort  of  evangelism  is 
an  unchristian  one  in  that,  like  Mammonism  and  milita- 
rism it  teaches  self-exaltation.  It  says : — "Kepent  for  your 
individual  spiritual  good — to  save  your  own  soul,"  while 
the  Simple  Gospel  says:  "Repent  for  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  is  at  hand — repent  in  order  to  lose  yourself  in 
the  common  welfare  of  the  redeemed  society."  In  both 
cases  repentance  is  required:  but  the  former  repentance, 
however  earnest  it  may  be,  generally  leaves  one  rather 
indifferent  to  the  crying  social  wrongs,  the  cynical  busi- 
ness dishonor,  and  the  depraved  esthetics  around  him 
while  the  latter  repentance  makes  one  burn  with  a  revo- 
lutionary zeal  to  see  high  standards  of  living,  real  in- 
tegrity, and  fine  appreciation  and  expression  prevail 
among  his  fellow  men. 


THE  PRACTICAL  RESULT  OF  THE  SERVICE 
OF  GOD 


THEREFORE  I  SAY  TO  YOU  DO  NOT  BE  ANXIOUS  ABOUT 
YOUR  LIFE— WHAT  YOU  SHALL  EAT  OR  \\HAT  YOU  SHALL 
DRINK,  NOR  ABOUT  YOUR  BODY— WHAT  YOU  SHALL 
WEAR:  IS  NOT  THE  LIFE  MORE  THAN  NOURISHMENT  AND 
THE  BODY  MORE  THAN  CLOTHING?  LOOK  AT  THE  BIRDS 
OF  HEAVEN  FOR  THEY  DO  NOT  SOW  NOR  REAP  NOR 
GATHER  INTO  STOREHOUSES  AND  YOUR  HEAVENLY  FA- 
THER FEEDS  THEM.  ARE  YOU  NOT  FAR  SUPERIOR  TO 
THEM?  WHO  OF  YOU  BY  BEING  ANXIOUS  CAN  ADD  ONE 
FOOT  TO  HIS  HEIGHT?  AND  WHY  ARE  YOU  ANXIOUS 
ABOUT  CLOTHING?  LEARN  WELL  FROM  THE  LILIES  OF 
THE  FIELDS  HOW  THEY  GROW.  THEY  DO  NOT  TOIL  AND 
THEY  DO  NOT  SPIN;  BUT  I  TELL  YOU  THAT  SOLOMON  IN 
ALL  HIS  GLORY  WAS  NOT  DECKED  OUT  LIKE  ONE  OF 
THESE.  BUT  IF  GOD  SO  CLOTHE  THE  VEGETATION  OF  THE 
FIELD  WHICH  IS  THERE  TO-DAY  AND  TO-MORROW  IS  CAST 
INTO  THE  STOVE  WILL  HE  NOT  MUCH  RATHER  CLOTHE 
YOU,  YOU  LITTLE  BELIEVING  ONES?  THEREFORE  DO 
NOT  BE  ANXIOUS,  SAYING  WHAT  SHALL  WE  EAT  OR  WHAT 
SHALL  WE  DRINK  OR  HOW  SHALL  WE  BE  CLOTHED?  FOR 
THE  GENTILES  SEEK  ALL  THESE  THINGS:  FOR  YOUR 
HEAVENLY  FATHER  KNOWS  THAT  YOU  NEED  ALL  OF 
THEM  BUT  DO  YOU  SEEK  FIRST  THE  KINGDOM  AND  ITS 
RIGHTEOUSNESS  AND  ALL  THESE  THINGS  SHALL  BE 
ADDED  FOR  YOU.  DO  NOT  BE  ANXIOUS  OVER  TO-MORROW 
FOR  TO-MORROW  WILL  BE  ANXIOUS  FOR  ITSELF:  SUF- 
FICIENT FOR  THE  DAY  IS  THE  EVIL  THEREOF. 

(Matthew  VI:  25-34.) 


THE  PRACTICAL  RESULT  OF  THE  SERVICE  OF  GOD 

IN  the  mind  of  Jesus  the  obvious  result  upon  character 
of  the  Mammon-worshipping  spirit  is  fretting  anxiety. 
He  who  puts  Mammon  first  must  be  a  prey  to  cark- 
ing  cares.  In  spite  of  all  the  witty  remarks  that  a  cynic 
might  make  as  to  willingness  to  undergo  the  ordeal,  the 
possession  of  riches  is  a  burden. 

This  is  obvious  from  commonplaces  which  we  have  con- 
sidered in  former  chapters.  We  have  dwelt  at  length  on 
the  struggle  for  existence;  and  the  bitterest,  most  intense, 
and  most  cruel  part  of  that  incessant  contest  is  the  eco- 
nomic war.  Wealth  as  a  rule  is  neither  attained  nor  re- 
tained without  vigorous  effort  and  constant  strain.  An 
overwhelming  proportion  of  the  wealth  of  the  average 
nation  is  held  by  an  extremely  small  percentage  of  its 
population,  each  of  these  few  grasping  unceasingly  for 
larger  gains :  for  every  moderate  success  in  business  there 
are  numerous  failures:  and  the  tremendous  successes  are 
amazingly  few.  Therefore  the  accretion  of  wealth  is  nec- 
essarily a  nerve-racking  occupation. 

Since  it  is  an  abnormal  achievement  it  demands  and 
produces  abnormal  conditions.  Jesus  feels  that  such  con- 
ditions are  out  of  place  among  men: — "Therefore  I  say 
to  you  do  not  be  anxious  about  your  life — what  you  shall 
eat  or  what  you  shall  drink,  nor  about  your  body — what 
you  shall  put  on." 

It  is  striking  that  He  has  chosen  here  the  two  most 
telling  distinctions  that  have  weight  with  unredeemed  hu- 

137 


138  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

inanity.  In  a  Mammon- worshipping  world  nothing  so 
marks  the  esteem  in  which  persons  are  actually  held — 
nothing  so  establishes  the  distinctions  of  those  who  seek 
to  exalt  themselves,  as  do  the  kinds  of  things  they  eat  and 
the  kinds  of  things  they  wear.  In  the  parable  of  Dives 
and  Lazarus,  you  remember,  the  man  cursed  because  of 
his  riches  is  described  as  "being  clothed  in  purple  and 
fine  linen  and  faring  sumptuously  every  day." 

These  things  being  marks  of  social  distinction  are  nec- 
essarily bars  to  effective  human  sympathy.  According  to 
the  principle  of  the  single  eye  he  whose  main  aim  is  to 
be  above  his  fellows  cannot  feel  with  them.  But  feeling 
with — sympathy  for,  one's  fellow  men  is  one  of  those 
expansive  forces  which  make  the  soul  too  big  for  little 
anxieties.  Fretting  cares  are  not  effective  upon  the  man 
whose  life  is  lost  in  the  large  service  to  which  human 
sympathy  is  the  portal.  It  is  said  that  Charles  Kingsley, 
on  being  asked  by  a  narrow  Evangelical  if  his  soul  were 
saved,  replied  that  he  had  forgotten  that  he  had  a  soul; 
he  was  so  lost  in  a  great  cause  that  little  cares  had  dis- 
appeared naturally ;  and  that  is  the  condition  which  Jesus 
urges  upon  His  followers. 

It  is,  of  course,  merely  that  losing  of  oneself  which  is 
so  fundamental  in  Christian  doctrine  and  which  is  every- 
where so  taken  for  granted  in  the  Simple  Gospel  that  we 
are  constantly  led  back  to  it.  He  who  saves  his  life  is 
lost  in  the  carking  anxieties  of  food  and  clothes  but  he 
who  loses  his  life  in  service  finds  so  large  an  experience 
that  it  cannot  be  consumed  in  pining  away. 

That  is  why  even  the  hardest  ordeals  of  life  bring  ulti- 
mately an  intense  satisfaction.  Nothing  gives  so  much 
joy  to  the  old  soldier  as  the  memory  of  the  trials  through 
which  he  has  passed :  and  even  while  passing  through  them, 
if  he  were  of  the  normal  mold,  he  laughed  and  sang.  The 


RESULT  OF  SERVICE  139 

heroic  is  the  only  wholly  satisfactory  expression  of  the 
spirit  of  man. 

That  is  why  unutterable  joy  has  been  a  not  unusual 
accompaniment  of  martyrdom.  Men  have  been  exultant 
while  burning  at  the  stake ;  and  it  was  in  this  mood  that 
Jesus  on  the  Cross  turned  our  thoughts  to  the  Eloi,  Eloi 
Lama  Sabacthani — a  psalm  of  triumphant  exaltation 
(Psalm  XXII).  No  one  can  have  much  knowledge  of  his- 
tory who  does  not  realize  that  loss  of  oneself  in  a  great 
cause  puts  one  out  of  reach  of  wasting  care. 

Such  care  comes  by  restricting  one's  life  to  too  narrow 
confines.  "Is  not  the  life  more  than  nourishment,  and 
the  body  more  than  clothing?" 

Perhaps  there  has  never  been  an  age  in  history  more 
likely  to  fail  to  grasp  the  implications  of  this  telling  ques- 
tion than  the  one  in  which  we  live.  For  with  our  un- 
precedented advance  in  the  scientific  knowledge  of  ma- 
terial things,  we  almost  instinctively  accept  a  thorough- 
going materialism.  Moral  goodness,  so  we  are  inclined 
to  imagine,  is  the  necessary  outcome  of  physical  well- 
being.  Many  modern  physicians  feel  that  all  immorality 
is  due  to  physical  defects  and  that  it  can  be  removed  by 
surgery.  "The  strength  of  sin  is  the  adenoid."  The 
typical  sociologist  believes  that  all  social  evils  are  due 
to  economic  causes  and  can  be  removed  by  economic  re- 
adjustments. 

Now  no  alert  mind  can  fail  to  see  a  germ  of  truth 
here.  Material  causes  do  lead  to  untold  spiritual  wrongs. 
Alcoholic  and  opiate  poisonings,  for  example,  undoubtedly 
impede  the  development  of  the  higher  moral  qualities  and 
break  down  good  habits  and  refinements  already  attained. 
Economic  inadequacy  does  lead  to  moral  delinquency. 

And  yet  perfect  health  and  economic  freedom  do  not 
make  better  morality  necessary.  Exuberant  health  and 


140  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

too  much  money,  in  the  case  of  young  men,  are  exceptional 
incentives  to  the  satisfaction  of  illicit  lust.  Family  life 
(so  far  as  we  can  now  see,  the  basis  of  the  highest  civili- 
zation) is  not  nearly  so  often  disrupted  by  hard  economic 
conditions  as  it  is  by  great  wealth.  By  far  the  larger  pro- 
portion of  divorces  occur  among  the  very  rich:  and  this 
fact  is  not  primarily  due  to  the  ability  of  the  rich  to 
secure  expensive  legal  processes  which  are  out  of  reach 
of  the  poor:  it  is  rather  due,  in  large  measure,  to  that 
weakening  of  moral  resistance  which  Jesus  looks  upon  as 
an  almost  certain  result  of  the  possession  of  riches.  It 
would  be  hard  to  find  anywhere  a  man  who  is  larger 
hearted,  more  sympathetic  with  illness  and  pain,  or  more 
kindly  to  poverty  because  of  superior  health  or  more 
abundant  wealth. 

In  view  of  such  facts  the  rhetorical  question  of  the 
Master  here  becomes  very  illuminating.  The  life  is  in- 
deed more  than  food  and  the  body  than  clothes:  material 
conditions  are  not  adequate  to  contain  the  fullness  of 
human  experience. 

Material  conditions  in  fact  are  repressive  and  devitaliz- 
ing when  they  become  ends  in  themselves.  This  is  espe- 
cially obvious  in  the  case  of  clothing.  A  common  tendency 
of  style,  especially  in  feminine  apparel,  is  toward  the  in- 
jury of  the  body  for  the  sake  of  clothes.  The  savage 
who  adorns  himself  with  physical  disfigurements  such  as 
tattoo  marks,  scars,  or  metal  and  wood  inserted  into  the 
lips  and  ears  is  not  a  unique  type  of  man:  his  spirit  ap- 
pears in  those  Oriental  women  who  bind  their  feet  and 
those  Occidental  women  who  bind  their  waists.  High 
heels,  pore-clogging  cosmetics,  and  the  long  list  of  similar 
barbarities  of  civilization  are  at  one  with  the  immemorial 
tendency  to  injure  the  body  by  making  too  much  of  the 
raiment. 


But  this  is  only  one  example  of  the  invariable  course 
of  materialism — a  conception  of  reality  which  is  certain 
to  bind  and  fetter  the  finer  expression  of  personality. 
This,  it  may  be  noted  in  passing,  seems  part  of  the  truth 
in  the  story  of  the  Temptation.  It  is  not  in  any  arrange- 
ment of  material  things,  even  though  it  be  a  miraculous 
one,  that  personality  can  find  its  highest  expression. 
"Man  cannot  live  by  bread  alone  but  by  every  word  that 
proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of  God." 

Restricting  life,  then,  to  wholly  material  considerations 
brings  deformity  and  disease.  The  symptom  of  such  dis- 
ease is  the  fretting  care  which  indicates  that  life  is  not 
getting  a  free  and  normal  expression. 

A  picture  of  what  this  free  and  normal  expression  of 
life  is  like  is  now  given  in  that  elemental  poetry  which 
beautifies  so  much  of  "the  teaching  of  Jesus  and  which 
is  an  earnest  of  the  fine  esthetic  conditions  that  will  prevail 
in  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  The  birds  of  the  sky  get  their 
food  and  the  lilies  of  the  field  get  their  raiment  naturally 
without  anxious  cares ;  and  spiritual  life  should  be  as  free 
and  natural  an  unfolding  as  are  the  lives  of  birds  and 
flowers. 

This  thought  has  received  a  great  amount  of  trivial 
criticism.  Part  of  it  has  been  due  to  the  mistranslation 
"take  no  thought"  for  "do  not  be  anxious":  and  part  of 
it  has  been  due  to  the  inevitable  predilection  of  the  scien- 
tifically materialistic  clodhopper  to  crush  his  heavy  feet 
through  the  fine  tracery  of  poetry. 

But  Jesus  elsewhere  leaves  no  doubt  as  to  His  respect 
for  practical  wisdom.  He  takes  it  for  granted  that  no 
one  will  build  a  tower  without  first  estimating  the  cost: 
and  He  seems  to  regret  that  the  children  of  this  world 
are,  in  their  generation,  wiser  than  the  children  of  light. 
The  Master  would  not  eliminate  ordinary  care  but 


142  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

He  would  have  all  worry  and  anxiety  separated  from 
care. 

By  the  same  token  there  is  no  warrant  in  the  actual 
words  of  Jesus  for  the  dull  criticism  that  He  seems  to 
ignore  the  fact  that  birds  have  to  scratch  for  their  food 
and  that  even  lily  plants  make  real  effort  in  turning  to 
the  sun  and  in  extracting  their  nourishment  from  the  soil. 
It  is  unfortunate  that  so  many  ponderous  minds  have  tried 
to  apply  their  clumsy  machinery  to  the  beautifully  bal- 
anced and  flexible  thought  of  Jesus;  and  while  hair-split- 
ting with  regard  to  His  words  is  often  a  needless  waste 
of  intellectual  energy,  the  crucial  words  of  this  passage 
are  so  important  as  to  make  it  necessary  to  insist  on  their 
full  meaning.  The  fine  poetic  quality  displayed  here  is 
of  a  type  that  always  accompanies  keen  power  of  observa- 
tion: and  on  no  theory  of  the  personality  of  Christ  is  it 
possible  to  imagine  Him  without  such  power.  He  knew 
of  course  that  birds  and  even  flowers  work  in  order  to 
subsist:  He  merely  pointed  to  the  fact  that  they  do  not 
lose  themselves  in  exhaustion.  For  that  is  the  full  mean- 
ing of  the  words  translated,  in  the  King  James  version, 
"they  toil  not" — "they  do  not  strain  to  the  point  of  ex- 
haustion." 

The  idea,  then,  is  that  just  as  birds  attain  mastery  over 
earth,  air,  and  water  without  approaching  mental  collapse 
through  anxiety  and  as  flowers  attain  the  most  perfect 
beauty  of  form  and  color  without  physical  exhaustion 
through  grinding  toil,  so  should  we  attain  the  free,  full, 
and  satisfying  expression  of  our  nature  in  the  saving, 
life-giving  citizenship  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven. 

The  lesson  is  well  rounded.  We  are  reminded  that 
anxiety  is  useless: — "which  of  you  by  taking  anxious 
(nerve-racking)  thought  can  add  one  foot  to  his  height?" 
And  we  are  also  reminded  that  the  finest  attainment  is 


RESULT  OF  SERVICE  143 

reached  without  crushing,  exhausting  toil: — "Yet  I  tell 
you  that  Solomon  in  all  his  glory  was  not  arrayed  like 
one  of  these." 

In  view  of  this  latter  truth  it  is  not  fanciful  to  find 
here  another  illustration  of  a  fact  discussed  in  the  last 
chapter — the  fact  of  the  beauty-destroying  and  ugliness- 
producing  effect  of  Mammon- worship.  Just  as  the  beauty 
of  the  lilies  comes  without  grinding  toil,  so  the  ugliness 
of  the  bourgeoise  civilization  conies  in  a  time  of  child 
labor,  exploitation  of  womanhood,  and  inadequate  wages. 
The  anxieties  of  the  rich  leading  to  the  cruelties  perpe- 
trated upon  the  sweated  poor  prevent  any  beautiful  ex- 
pression of  the  glorious  liberty  of  the  sons  of  God.  Jazz 
music,  best  selling  novels,  civil  war  soldiers'  monuments, 
and  free  verse  are  obviously  expressions  of  a  civilization 
too  careworn  and  exhausted  to  express  itself  in  the  strong 
and  delicate  touches  which  will  naturally  come  in  the  full 
self-expression  of  the  Heavenly  Realm. 

We  fail  to  ris<3  to  this  best  expression  of  our  energies 
because  we  are  lacking  in  a  sensible  faith.  We  do  not 
realize  that  the  Power  which  brings  the  evanescent  grass 
of  the  field  to  perfection  will  exercise  even  greater  care 
upon  the  development  of  those  abiding  spiritual  realities 
which  we  call  our  souls. 

It  is  interesting  to  note,  at  this  point,  how  full  of  faith 
Jesus  is.  It  is  incomprehensible  to  Him,  in  His  deep 
spiritual  consciousness,  that  men  cannot  feel  the  Presence 
of  the  Heavenly  Father  and  His  loving  care.  To  His 
understanding  it  is  just  as  obvious  as  any  of  the  other 
facts  which  He  analyzes  in  the  Sermon. 

Such  a  realization  of  the  actuality  of  God's  Fatherli- 
ness  is,  of  course,  possible  only  to  one  who  is  not  a 
materialist:  and  so  Jesus  repeats  the  injunction  not  to 
be  fretted  with  anxiety  as  to  what  we  shall  eat,  drink, 


144  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

and  wear.  That  is  not  a  right  condition  of  mind  and  heart 
for  citizenship  in  the  Kingdom:  it  is,  rather,  the  way 
of  the  world :  "for  the  gentiles  clamor  for  all  these  things." 

This  point  cannot  be  overemphasized.  The  great  dis- 
course which  has  as  its  central  motive  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  constantly  has  to  contrast  the  principles  of  that 
Kingdom  with  the  ways  of  the  world:  and  notwithstand- 
ing differences  in  the  form  of  expression  the  Fourth  Gos- 
pel, as  we  have  already  remarked,  is,  in  its  underlying 
contrast  between  the  world  and  the  redeemed,  at  one  with 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  Unlike  "the  gentiles,"  the 
children  of  the  Kingdom  do  not  have  to  worry  and  chafe 
about  material  circumstances.  "Their  Heavenly  Father 
knows  that  they  need  all  these  things." 

Now  it  would  be  utterly  unwarranted  to  find  here  a 
promise  that  every  individual  follower  of  Jesus  shall  al- 
ways be  abundantly  clothed  and  fed.  Such  an  idea  is  in- 
compatible with  principles  that  have  gone  before  in  the 
discourse.  It  would  contradict  the  spirit  of  the  Beati- 
tudes which  is  that  poverty  and  worse  conditions  can  be 
blessed.  It  would  also  be  out  of  harmony  with  the  idea, 
set  forth  in  the  Sermon,  of  God  as  making  the  sun  to 
shine  and  the  rain  to  fall  upon  good  and  bad  indifferently. 
For  although  in  its  context  that  particular  reference  in- 
dicates the  beneficent  effect  of  sun  and  rain,  it  is  a  neces- 
sary inference  that  the  evil  effects  of  sun  and  rain  also 
come  without  regard  to  the  character  of  those  to  whom 
they  come.  Good  character  is  no  guarantee  of  good 
material  circumstances. 

We  would  never  get  a  suggestion  to  the  contrary  if 
we  did  not  read  in  such  a  fragmentary  way.  But  we  are 
all  so  worldly  minded  that  whenever  we  come  to  the  splen- 
did passage  here  under  consideration  we  think  primarily 
of  food  and  clothes — the  so-called  good  things  of  life. 


KESULT  OF  SERVICE  145 

This  fact  was  well  illustrated  some  years  ago  in  one 
of  our  best  theological  schools  when  the  professor  of  homi- 
letics,  a  great  preacher  and  leader  of  religious  thought, 
gave  the  climax  of  this  passage  ("Seek  ye  first  the  King- 
dom of  God  .  .  .  and  all  these  things  shall  be  added 
unto  you")  as  a  sermon  text,  and  asked  his  class  for  sug- 
gestions as  to  how  a  sermon  upon  it  should  be  developed. 
The  class  was  made  up,  for  the  most  part,  of  exceptionally 
earnest  men;  but  it  soon  became  clear  that  to  them  all 
the  compelling  thought  of  the  passage  was  as  to  food  and 
raiment:  and  the  good  professor  himself  seemed  to  share 
their  point  of  view.  The  best  of  men  incline  to  the 
materialistic  standpoint. 

Nevertheless  it  is  perfectly  plain  that  food  and  clothing 
are  very  secondary  in  the  passage.  "Seek  you  first  the 
Kingdom"  is  about  as  definite  and  emphatic  an  injunction, 
one  would  imagine,  as  could  be  given  against  letting  ma- 
terial considerations  have  first  place. 

It  is  the  supreme  thought  of  the  Sermon,  and  it  comes 
as  the  glorious  climax  to  a  series  of  noble  passages  dealing 
with  what  may  be  called  spiritual  sanity.  The  series  be- 
gins with  much  the  same  thought  as  this  with  which  it 
closes — the  idea  of  making  the  heavenly  treasure  superior 
to  all  things  else.  Then  follow  two  telling  illustrations 
of  the  importance  of  putting  first  things  first — the  prin- 
ciple of  the  single  eye  and  that  of  the  impossibility  of 
serving  two  lords.  Then  comes  the  beautiful  dissertation 
in  regard  to  the  result  of  laying  up  treasures  in  heaven 
in  freeing  the  soul  from  wasting  care.  And,  finally,  the 
command  to  make  the  Kingdom  of  first  importance. 

This,  let  it  be  reiterated,  is  what  the  Preacher  has 
done  in  the  Great  Sermon.  We  saw  the  Kingdom  in 
the  first  sentence  of  the  discourse  as  the  true  riches  which 
make  even  economic  poverty  blessed.  We  saw  it  as  the 


146  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

chief  object  of  prayer  in  the  model  prayer.  We  see  it 
here  as  the  only  fit  object  of  life's  endeavor :  and  we  shall 
see  it  as  necessary  to  be  kept  in  mind  in  interpreting  the 
closing  passages  of  the  Sermon. 

This  being  the  case,  nothing  could  be  more  absurd  than 
to  emphasize  the  casual  saying  that  as  a  result  of  seeking 
first  the  Kingdom  and  its  righteousness  "all  these  things 
(the  food  and  raiment)  shall  be  added  unto  you."  To 
one  who  has  grasped  the  main  content  of  the  Sermon  they 
can  never  be  of  vital  importance.  To  any  one  convinced 
of  the  blessedness  of  poverty  and  loss,  stamped  with  the 
meekness  and  peace  loving  spirit  of  those  who  are  eager 
for  no  material  preeminence,  hungry  and  thirsty  for 
righteousness,  full  of  the  purity  of  heart  that  makes  God 
and  His  goodness  the  end  and  aim  of  one's  being,  and 
so  much  in  earnest  as  to  welcome  persecution  or  slander 
for  the  sake  of  the  cause,  food  and  clothes  are  not  burning 
considerations. 

That,  in  fact,  is  the  whole  point  of  the  great  text: — 
"Seek  ye  first  the  Kingdom  and  its  righteousness  and 
all  these  things  shall  be  added  unto  you."  Seeking  the 
Kingdom  in  the  spirit  that  Jesus  urges  upon  us,  we  shall 
be  so  filled  and  thrilled  by  a  high,  all-absorbing  purpose 
that  we  shall  be  impervious  to  fretting  anxiety.  We  shall 
feel  the  impetus  of  the  life  that  made  the  martyrs  jubilant 
in  their  martyrdom  and  that  has  made  all  true  mission- 
aries from  St.  Paul  on  able  to  say: — "What  things  were 
gain  to  me  I  counted  lost  for  Christ.  Yea,  doubtless,  and 
I  count  all  things  but  loss  for  the  excellency  of  the  knowl- 
edge of  Christ  Jesus  my  Lord  for  whom  I  have  suffered 
the  loss  of  all  things  and  do  count  them  but  dung  that  I 
may  win  Christ." 

"No  other  spirit  is  compatible  with  the  acceptance  of  the 
Sermon:  and  food  and  clothing — all  material  needs — are 


KESULT  OF  SEEVICE  147 

wanted,  in  that  spirit,  only  as  they  make  for  the  progress 
of  the  Kingdom.  If  the  absence  of  these  things  is  of 
advantage  to  the  Kingdom,  the  true  disciple  of  Jesus  is 
glad — he  realizes  blessedness — in  foregoing  these  things. 

Nevertheless  when  we  strip  them  of  all  individualistic 
interpretation,  as  naturally  we  should  do  in  a  discourse 
the  main  subject  of  which  is  the  collective  body  of  re- 
deemed humanity — the  Kingdom  of  Heaven — we  find  in 
these  words  a  very  obvious  truth.  For  when  men  are 
converted  to  that  Kingdom — when  they  substitute  the 
worship  of  God  for  the  worship  of  Mammon — when  their 
main  object  is  the  service  of  others  rather  than  the  enlarge- 
ment of  their  personal  gains,  food  and  clothing  will  be 
plentifully  and  adequately  distributed. 

They  are  usually  plentiful  enough.  Scarcity  of  material 
necessities  in  these  days  is,  as  a  rule,  the  result  of  sabotage 
on  the  part  of  industrial  magnates  rather  than  of  inability 
to  produce  those  necessities.  This  capitalistic  sabotage, 
as  we  have  seen,  takes  various  forms:  car  loads  of  fresh 
vegetables  have  been  thrown  into  the  sea  or  plowed  into 
the  ground  in  order  to  realize  exorbitant  prices  on  what 
was  saved :  tons  of  hides  have  been  retained  in  stock  yards 
in  order  to  make  the  cost  of  shoes  and  other  leather  prod- 
ucts enormous:  factories  and  mines  have  been  closed  for 
indefinite  periods  in  order  to  save  labor  costs  and  realize 
advanced  prices  on  the  sabotaged  product. 

This  process,  Prof.  Veblen  is  not  far  wrong  in  believing, 
is  basic  in  the  prevailing  system  of  production:  but  ac- 
cording to  the  principle  dealt  with  in  the  Fourth  Chapter  it 
is  hideous  sin.  Looked  at  from  the  Heavenly  viewpoint  it 
has  all  the  guilt  of  thoroughgoing  theft  and  downright 
murder.  It  is  clearly  a  deliberate  attempt  to  make  food 
and  clothing  hard  to  procure;  and  it  cannot  be  doubted 
that  the  skill  and  intelligence  now  exerted  in  this  evil 


148  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

direction  would,  if  converted  to  the  interests  of  the  King- 
dom, easily  produce  abundantly  and  distribute  equitably. 

It  is  easy  enough  to  exaggerate  the  faults  of  those  who 
do  not  secure  a  sufficient  amount  of  this  world's  goods  just 
as  it  is  easy  to  ignore  those  faults  altogether ;  but  it  ought 
to  be  clear  that  in  a  Mammon-worshipping  world  the  high- 
est ethical  and  spiritual  qualities  are  as  fatal  to  one's 
material  welfare  as  are  shiftlessness  and  lack  of  thrift. 
An  exalted  ideal  of  fairness  and  honor  is  an  impediment 
to  progress  wherever  Mammon  prevails. 

In  this  connection  also  it  should  be  remembered  that 
no  true  convert  to  the  Simple  Gospel  could  say  compla- 
cently, even  if  it  were  true,  that  those  who  lack  material 
comforts  deserve  their  misfortune.  As  the  following 
chapter  indicates  we  are  not  the  judges  of  our  fellow  men ; 
and  no  real  Christian  can  take  any  satisfaction  in  the 
hardships  of  his  brethren.  In  his  doctrinally  required 
love  for  them  he  must  be  as  regardless  of  their  merits  as 
is  the  God  who  sends  sun  and  rain  upon  them  impartially. 
He  cannot  be  satisfied  if  they  are  not  properly  clothed  and 
fed.  "Those  that  are  last  shall  be  first,"  said  Jesus;  and 
it  is  obvious  from  His  teaching  that  He  holds  the  self- 
centered  thrift  of  Mammon-worship  to  be  worse  by  far 
than  shiftlessness.  In  the  ethics  of  the  Heavenly  Realm 
thrift  has  virtue  only  as  advancing  those  economies  and 
sacrifices  which  make  for  the  general  welfare — the  further- 
ing of  more  ample  production  and  the  facilitating  of  more 
efficient  distribution.  In  a  material  world  considerations 
of  this  nature  are  absolute  essentials  to  the  minds  of  all 
those  who  seek  first  the  Kingdom  and  its  righteousness. 

The  result  of  this  attitude  cannot  be  in  doubt.  Just 
as  the  putting  of  Mammon  first  brings  the  devastating  and 
dehumanizing  effects  some  of  which  were  mentioned  in  the 
last  chapter,  so  the  putting  of  God's  service  first  will  pro- 


KESULT  OF  SEKVICE  149 

duce  the  most  constructively  humanizing  effects  imagina- 
ble. In  the  coming  regime  the  material  welfare  of  their 
fellows  will  he  a  consuming  and  unconquerable  purpose 
of  the  activity  of  men  and  women. 

That  will  eliminate  anxiety  and  worry.  "Do  not  be 
anxious  over  to-morrow  for  to-morrow  will  be  anxious  for 
itself.  Sufficient  unto  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof." 

With  this  paradox  the  Sixth  Chapter  of  St.  Matthew 
closes:  and  it  is  akin  to  the  crucial  Christian  paradox 
that  "he  who  saveth  his  life  shall  lose  it."  The  object 
of  worry  and  anxiety  is  to  be  sufficient  unto  the  day  and 
that  is  not  a  blessing  at  all  because  it  restricts  life  rather 
than  enlarges  it.  Bergson  somewhere  suggests  that  the 
social  insects  like  bees  and  ants  who  perform  such  mar- 
velous mechanical  and  engineering  feats  do  not  progress 
because  they  are  so  nicely  fitted  to  their  environment. 
The  tools  with  which  nature  has  provided  their  bodies 
are  so  perfectly  adapted  to  their  work  that  their  whole 
consciousness  is  filled  by  the  use  of  those  tools.  Man  is 
not  so  well  provided  with  natural  implements  and  he  has 
been  forced  to  think  and  plan  in  order  to  construct  arti- 
ficial ones.  This  process  has  developed  his  higher  intel- 
lectual qualities.  His  very  insufficiency  for  his  day's  work 
has  elevated  him  infinitely  above  the  day's  work  into  those 
far  spiritual  reaches  which  have  inclined  him  to  the 
music,  art,  and  poetry  so  uncongenial  to  the  materialistic, 
Mammon-worshipping  spirit  which  seeks  sufficiency  unto 
the  day. 

This  principle  cannot  be  overemphasized.  A  conscious- 
ness bounded  and  contained  by  material  considerations  is 
a  low  type  of  consciousness.  We  saw  that  this  was  obvious 
in  the  case  of  the  materialism  of  the  Mammon-worship- 
ping, capitalistic  system  but  it  would  be  almost  as  obvious 
if  a  socialistic  materialism  such  as  the  bees  and  ants  main- 


150  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

tain  were  substituted  for  the  other.  Abstract  philosophy 
and  theology  may  not  be  popular  in  the  age  of  so-called 
practical  efficiency  which  ruthlessly  disintegrates  beauty 
and  the  other  elements  of  the  real  fullness  of  life,  but 
our  entire  sanity  is  involved  in  our  approach  to  that  fun- 
damental question  of  reality  as  to  whether  material  things 
are  the  work  of  a  creative  spirit  or  are  themselves  the 
creative  source  of  all  that  we  naturally  look  upon  as 
spiritual. 

Now  if  the  spiritual  be  supreme  the  point  of  the  passage 
which  we  are  here  considering  is  of  the  utmost  importance. 
"Seek  first  the  Kingdom  and  its  righteousness."  With 
this  as  the  main  element  of  humanity's  endeavor  all  right 
conditions  material  and  spiritual  inevitably  follow. 

For  religion,  as  its  bitterest  opponents  emphatically 
assert,  is  a  mighty  force.  It  is  the  force  which  has  de- 
veloped the  highest  reaches  of  the  thought  and  expression 
of  human  nature  and  it  is  the  only  force  that  can  develop 
them  further.  To  spurn  good  religion  because  religion 
has  sometimes  been  evil  is  no  more  sane  than  to  give  up 
the  use  of  electric  lights  and  engines  because  electricity 
uncontrolled  can  do  enormous  damage. 

Indeed  it  is  only  that  type  of  mind,  considered  in  a 
former  chapter,  which  is  hypnotized  by  materialism  that 
can  see  in  religion  nothing  more  than  a  means  whereby 
those  in  power  can  keep  those  beneath  them  in  subjection. 
For  while  it  cannot  be  gainsaid  that  religion  has  been 
used  to  pervert  high  idealisms  into  false  loyalties,  to  make 
superstition  a  source  of  revenue  and  autocratic  power,  and 
to  torture  splendid  enthusiasm  into  brutal  fanaticism, 
these  are  a  no  more  just  basis  for  the  interpretation  of  true 
religion  than  your  worst  mistakes  and  my  most  unfortu- 
nate actions  are  a  just  basis  for  the  interpretation  of  our 
real  characters.  We  do  not  seek  to  do  away  with  education 


RESULT  OF  SERVICE  151 

itself  because  children  can  easily  be  educated  into  wrong 
social  and  moral  ways  of  life  and  thought;  we  do  not 
seek  to  eliminate  journalism  from  the  world's  activities 
because  it  can  exert  almost  unlimited  power  in  giving 
wrong  impressions  to  the  populace;  we  do  not  care  to 
destroy  all  art  and  to  silence  all  music  because  art  and 
music  can  be  made  to  minister  to  the  lowest  passions :  why, 
then,  should  the  most  elevating  and  inspiring  element  in 
life  be  cast  aside  as  worthless  because  it  shares  with  every 
other  excellence  the  possibility  of  being  distorted  and 
turned  into  wrong  channels  ? 

For  that  the  Christian  religion  is  essentially  excellent 
we  have  even  the  testimony,  unconscious  to  be  sure,  of 
its  most  severe  critics.  Because  when  they  contrast  the 
actions  and  expressions  of  any  form  of  organized  Chris- 
tianity with  what  they  consider  to  be  ideal  righteousness, 
it  develops  that  their  ideal  righteousness,  in  so  far  as  it 
makes  any  strong  human  appeal,  is  the  righteousness 
taught  by  Jesus  Christ.  Oblivious  as  they  sometimes  are 
to  the  fact,  all  opponents  of  organized  Christianity  in 
order  to  be  effective  must  uphold  that  moral  idealism 
which  organized  Christianity,  with  all  its  pitiable  failures 
and  damnable  faults,  has  been  able  to  impress  upon  the 
consciousness  of  the  human  race. 

Perhaps  the  one  matter  in  which  there  is  likely  to  be 
doubt  in  this  regard  is  the  emancipation  of  womanhood. 
One  great  modern  writer  who  by  his  socialistic  writings 
has  been  able  to  secure  a  far  better  livelihood  than  comes 
to  the  great  majority  of  the  Christian  ministers  at  whom 
he  sneers,  ignoring  the  striking  differences  between  the 
position  of  woman  in  India,  China,  or  Japan  and  her 
position  in  the  most  backward  of  the  so-called  Christian 
lands,  finds  the  manifest  injustices  to  woman  in  modern 
law  to  be  the  result  of  the  Christian  "Mysogyny"  (the 


152  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

spelling  is  his).  St.  Paul,  whose  absurd  views  of  woman- 
kind are  so  unsatisfactory  even  to  himself  that  he  admits 
that  they  are  his  own  uninspired,  personal  whims,  seems, 
in  spite  of  his  being  the  most  hostile  to  legalism  of  all 
men  who  have  ever  lived,  to  be  held  responsible  for  mod- 
ern laws  that  are  unfair  to  women.  The  Hebrew  story 
of  creation  also  is  given  some  responsibility  for  anti-femi- 
nine law  in  the  modern  world :  and  both  ideas  are  amazing 
survivals  of  the  naive  impression  of  fanatical  Evangelic- 
ism  that  modern  law  has  its  origin  in  the  Bible  rather  than 
in  the  code  of  the  Roman  Empire.  Woman  has  already 
been  elevated  considerably  by  even  that  small  part  of  the 
Christian  system  which  has  so  far  prevailed;  and  when 
the  system  prevails  completely  she  will  come  to  her 
own. 

But  justice  to  womankind  is  only  one  of  the  elements 
of  the  Gospel  of  Christ.  That  Gospel  is  humanitarian 
in  all  its  elements.  It  is  more  humanitarian  than  all 
other  systems  of  life  and  thought  combined.  It  is  the 
one  religion  whose  God  is  no  respecter  of  persons  and 
which  is  essentially  opposed  to  all  priestly  or  other  ruling 
castes  and  classes.  Its  great  "misogynist"  has  said: — 
"There  can  be  neither  Jew  nor  Greek,  there  can  be  neither 
bond  nor  free,  there  can  be  no  male  and  female;  for  you 
are  all  one  in  Christ  Jesus." 

In  that  Christ  Jesus  lies  the  supreme  hope  of  the  Pro- 
letariat. In  birth,  life,  and  death  He  was  of  the  Pro- 
letariat— something  that  can  be  said  neither  of  Marx  nor 
of  Lenine.  Their  materialism  is  not  so  proletarian  as  is 
His  transcendentalism  because  they  were  not  to  the  manor 
born — or  rather  to  the  manger  born.  Their  first  thought 
is  food  and  clothes  and  His  is  of  His  Father's  righteous 
Kingdom.  Their  righteousness,  beyond  question,  is  vastly 
more  near  to  that  of  the  Heavenly  Realm  than  is  that  of 


EESULT  OF  SEEVICE  153 

the  apostate  Churches  which  in  the  lands  where  they  were 
born  blatantly  supported  autocratic  impertinence  and  blas- 
phemously called  such  impertinence  the  will  of  Christ. 
Nevertheless  their  rigid  dogma  of  the  all  determining 
sufficiency  of  material  things  is  as  cruel  and  oppressive 
a  dogma  as  any  that  has  ever  cast  a  shadow  over  the  free 
spirit  of  man. 

We  ought  constantly  to  remind  ourselves  of  this  fact. 
When  men  of  learning,  in  the  last  generation,  began  to 
set  aside  religious  dogma  they  did  not  thereby  give  up  the 
dogmatic  spirit.  ISTo  religious  dogmatist  ever  asserted  that 
the  soul  is  immortal  with  quite  the  positive  assurance  that 
Huxley  maintained  when  he  said  that  the  soul  is  not  im- 
mortal. In  the  introduction  to  the  anti-religious  book  just 
mentioned  the  author  says: — "I  have  found  that  .  .  . 
suffering  is  needless,  it  can  with  ease  and  certainty  be 
banished  from  the  earth.  I  know  this  with  the  knowledge 
of  science."  Religion  is  not  unique  in  having  a  tendency 
toward  finality  in  its  assertions. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  spirit  of  religion  in  its  essence 
is  less  final  than  that  of  science.  Religion  has  a  creed 
and  says,  "I  believe" :  science  says,  "I  know."  This  does 
not  mean  that  the  scientific  method  of  approach  to  truth 
is  not  the  best  method  even  for  religion.  But  the  finality 
of  the  man  who  believes  the  material  to  be  all  that  there 
is  to  reality  is  the  result  of  narrow  dogmatism  and  it  is 
always  marked  by  a  dogmatic  intolerance.  It  is  forever 
confusing  deductions  from  observed  facts  with  the  actual 
facts  themselves:  and  that  is  why  the  very  best  scientific 
text-books  rapidly  become  obsolete  and  have,  after  a  few 
years,  to  be  thrown  out. 

The  great  texts  of  other  types  of  literature  like  poetry, 
fairy  lore,  and  drama,  being  more  spiritual,  are  infinitely 
more  enduring.  Dogma  restricts  all  expansion  of  thought 


154  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

and  therefore  crushes  out  the  life  which  depends  upon  ex- 
panding thought  for  its  development. 

Dogma,  moreover,  is  divisive  in  its  tendency.  The 
Christian  Church  is  divided  into  various  sects,  separated 
from  each  other  because  of  rigid  adherence  to  some  more 
or  less  trivial  dogma.  Science  has  a  similar  tendency 
as  the  various  schools  of  medicine  prove :  and  the  divisive 
effect  of  the  various  dogmata  of  economic  science  is  one 
of  the  saddest  facts  in  modern  civilization.  If  all  the 
men  and  women  who  are  sincerely  distressed  at  social 
injustice  and  economic  wrong  could  combine  in  a  common 
program  for  betterment  they  could  improve  conditions  by 
leaps  and  bounds.  Dogma — unproved  dogma — is  one 
of  the  great  impediments.  The  forces  of  Mammon  readily 
combine  to  accomplish  big  purposes  and  they  easily  dis- 
rupt the  forces  set  against  them  by  dividing  the  camp  of 
their  opponents. 

The  spiritual  authority  of  Jesus,  therefore,  is  a  more 
reasonable  basis  for  socially  redemptive  enthusiasm  than 
is  the  scientific  dogmatism  of  men  like  Marx  and  Lenine. 
There  is  in  the  proletarian  consciousness  of  Western  lands 
a  long  established,  hereditary  feeling  of  the  supremacy 
of  Christ.  It  can  be  influenced  by  the  right  kind  of 
preaching  in  such  a  way  as  to  become  the  richest  asset 
of  the  forces  of  social  redemption.  The  salvation  of  the 
world  depends  upon  the  willingness  of  religious  people 
to  change  their  dogmatic  assurances  concerning  indeter- 
minable facts  about  the  nature  of  Deity  and  of  sacraments 
into  a  quiet  confidence  in  the  workableness  of  the  Simple 
Gospel — in  the  power  of  Him  who  brought  that  Gospel 
into  the  world  to  justify  all  faith  in  it. 

So,  without  entering  into  the  realm  of  refined  defini- 
tion, we  can  readily  see  that  the  larger  place  we  give  to 
Jesus  Christ  in  our  hearts,  the  more  importance  will  we 


EESULT  OF  SEEVICE  155 

give  to  His  Gospel.  But  that  Simple  Gospel  would  satisfy 
the  desires  of  the  most  ardent  worker  for  social  better- 
ment. It  is  really  the  goal  of  the  most  intense  revolution- 
ists: and  the  repentance,  preached  from  the  beginning  as 
necessary  to  usher  in  the  Kingdom  which  is  at  hand, 
means,  precisely,  utter  revolution  in  the  heart  of  man- 
kind. So  that  whether  one's  religion  centers  upon  the  idea 
of  eating  and  drinking  the  Body  and  Blood  of  Christ  or 
upon  the  idea  of  a  changed  nature  brought  about  by  the 
spiritual  washing  of  the  Blood  of  Jesus,  the  whole  point 
of  either  process  is  lost  if  it  does  not  definitely  relate  itself 
to  the  building  up  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  Both 
processes  look  to  the  conversion  of  the  natural  man  into 
the  spiritual  man  and  if  such  conversion  actually  takes 
place,  the  converted  person  cannot  be  at  home  any  more 
in  the  ways  of  Mammon :  he  is  content  only  in  the  citizen- 
ship of  the  Heavenly  Realm.  It  is  the  very  nature  of 
such  citizenship  to  eliminate  all  care  and  want. 

The  passage  treated  in  the  last  three  chapters  deals  with 
the  unity  of  life — singleness  of  interest,  vision,  service. 
The  central  motive,  so  it  teaches,  must  be  right  or  else  all 
things  are  thrown  out  of  proportion.  Common  experience 
teaches  this  fact.  If  the  central  motive  is  art — if  art 
is  conceived  as  existing  alone  for  art's  sake,  then  morality 
and  decency  will  be  neglected  as  they  have  been  in  the 
lives  of  so  many  musicians,  painters,  and  architects.  If 
business  is  given  the  central  position  we  have  the  cruel, 
hideous,  bourgeoise  state  with  its  ghastly  service  of  Mam- 
mon. But  if  the  Kingdom  with  its  righteousness  come 
first  all  things  will  assume  right  and  satisfactory  propor- 
tions. 


THE  CHRISTIAN  ATTITUDE  TOWARD 
HUMAN  IMPERFECTION 


DO  NOT  PASS  JUDGMENT  IN  ORDER  THAT  YOU  MAY  NOT 
HAVE  JUDGMENT  PASSED  UPON  YOU:  FOR  THE  KIND  OF 
JUDGMENT  THAT  YOU  PASS  SHALL  BE  PASSED  UPON  YOU, 
AND  BY  THE  RULE  WITH  WHICH  YOU  MEASURE  YOU 
SHALL  BE  MEASURED.  AND  WHY  DO  YOU  LOOK  AT  THE 
MOTE  WHICH  IS  IN  YOUR  BROTHER'S  EYE  AND  DO  NOT 
OBSERVE  THE  PLANK  WHICH  IS  IN  YOUR  OWN  EYE?  AND 
HOW  SHALL  YOU  SAY  TO  YOUR  BROTHER  "ALLOW  ME  TO 
TAKE  THE  MOTE  OUT  OF  YOUR  EYE":  AND  BEHOLD  THE 
PLANK  IS  IN  YOUR  OWN  EYE?  YOU  HYPOCRITE,  FIRST 
CAST  OUT  THE  PLANK  FROM  YOUR  OWN  EYE  AND  THEN 
YOU  SHALL  SEE  CLEARLY  TO  CAST  OUT  THE  MOTE  FROM 
YOUR  BROTHER'S  EYE. 

DO  NOT  GIVE  THAT  WHICH  IS  HOLY  TO  THE  DOGS,  AND 
DO  NOT  THROW  YOUR  PEARLS  IN  FRONT  OF  THE  PIGS  IN 
ORDER  THAT  THEY  MAY  NOT  TRAMPLE  THEM  WITH  THEIR 
FEET  AND  TURN  AND  TEAR  YOU  UP. 

(Matthew  VII:   1-6.) 


CHAPTEE  X 

THE   CHRISTIAN   ATTITUDE   TOWARD   HUMAN    IMPERFECTION 

THE  climax  of  the  Great  Discourse  is  reached  at  the 
end  of  the  Sixth  Chapter  of  St.  Matthew,  but  it 
would  lose  much  if  it  lacked  the  group  of  sane, 
well-balanced  admonitions  appended  in  the  Seventh  Chap- 
ter. They  are  not  so  loosely  thrown  together  as  a  hasty 
reader  might  assume.  In  reality  they  combine  to  form 
a  very  searching  commentary  upon  the  utter  fatuity  and 
deceptiveness  of  man's  ways  in  contrast  with  the  absolute 
dependability  of  the  Divine  method.  Man,  so  the  Seventh 
Chapter  of  St.  Matthew  seems  to  repeat,  tends  to  set  him- 
self forward  as  that  which  he  is  not;  he  plays  a  part; 
consciously  or  unconsciously  he  is  a  hypocrite.  God  on 
the  other  hand  is  the  Giver  of  perfect  gifts;  His  ways 
as  explained  by  Jesus  are  the  rock  upon  which  the  struc- 
ture of  every  permanent  life  must  be  built. 

The  present  chapter  concerns  itself  with  the  inadequacy 
of  human  understanding — that  natural  dullness  of  insight 
which  is  generally  due  to  our  unwillingness  to  compre- 
hend sympathetically  those  who  are  around  us.  We  pass 
judgment  on  those  who  are  better  than  we  are  and  we 
fail  to  use  judgment  with  regard  to  those  who  have  not 
risen  to  our  standards.  At  times  we  condemn  others  in 
those  very  matters  in  which  we  are  most  open  to  con- 
demnation; and  at  times  we  pay  others  the  undeserved 
compliment  of  offering  the  finest  gems  of  our  thought  to 
their  swinish  understanding. 

That  these  two  ideas  should  be  included  in  the  same 

159 


160  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

paragraph  is  characteristic  of  the  completeness  of  the 
thought  of  Jesus.  Standing  alone  the  words  "Judge  not 
that  you  be  not  judged"  might  be  a  command  not  to  use 
judgment  because  the  words  in  themselves  are  capable 
of  that  meaning:  but  they  are  also  capable  of  meaning 
what  is  here  demanded  by  the  context: — "Do  not  pass 
judgment  in  order  that  judgment  may  not  be  passed  upon 
you."  We  have  to  use  judgment  if  we  are  to  determine 
who  the  dogs  and  pigs  are.  Jesus  looks  upon  His  doctrine 
as  the  very  essence  of  wisdom  and  to  obtain  wisdom  judg- 
ment is  demanded. 

Condemnation,  however,  is  not  a  part  of  wisdom;  and 
we  have  but  to  recall  the  various  heresy  prosecutions  of 
our  day  to  be  aware  that  those  who  most  vehemently  con- 
demn others  for  lack  of  spiritual  understanding  are  apt 
to  be  the  least  enlightened  of  men. 

But  the  same  tendency  permeates  all  departments  of 
life.  It  is  fundamental  in  the  teachings  of  Jesus  that 
"the  first  shall  be  last  and  the  last  first,"  and  our  ordinary 
impressions  are  likely  to  be  very  superficial.  The  story 
of  His  earthly  life  begins  as  that  of  a  lowly  babe  in  a 
manger  who  is  really  the  King  of  Kings,  and  it  ends  with 
the  account  of  a  condemned  criminal  on  a  cross  who  is 
really  the  Eternal  Judge. 

It  is  essential  to  Christianity,  therefore,  that  we  should 
be  very  hesitant  in  condemning.  We  have  to  judge  ac- 
cording to  old,  fixed  rules,  laws,  and  precedents  while  the 
actual  life  that  we  judge  is  a  growing,  expanding  reality 
constantly  bursting  its  former  bounds  and  ever  attaining 
new,  hitherto  unrealized  developments. 

This,  by  the  way,  accounts  for  the  almost  constant  fail- 
ure of  contemporary  literary  criticism.  For  criticism  is 
hedged  about  by  the  standards  of  a  dead  past  while  crea- 
tive art  is  full  of  new  life.  Criticism  at  its  best  is  far 


ATTITUDE  TOWARD  IMPERFECTION     161 

inferior  to  creative  genius  and  the  critic  is  almost  neces- 
sarily the  man  with  a  heavy  plank  in  his  eye,  trying  to 
remove  the  tiny  speck  from  the  creative  artist's  eye.  Thus 
Jeffreys,  the  leading  contemporary  critic  of  Wordsworth, 
found  nothing  of  value  in  Wordsworth.  In  the  next  gen- 
eration, however,  Matthew  Arnold,  the  prince  of  critics, 
in  commemorating  the  death  of  Wordsworth,  wrote: — "The 
last  poetic  voice  is  dumb,"  although  at  the  time  Tennyson 
and  Browning  were  publishing  work  that  has  become 
classic.  But  the  new  creations  in  each  case  transcended 
the  old  rules  of  judging;  and  the  critics'  condemnation 
necessarily  returned  upon  themselves.  He  who  metes  out 
great  condemnation  is  most  likely  to  have  the  same  meas- 
ured out  to  him. 

For  the  principle  of  the  mote  and  the  beam  is  rooted 
deeply  in  human  nature.  There  is  no  more  harsh  critic 
of  the  better  people  in  the  village  than  the  village  sot. 
There  is  no  more  eager  denouncer  of  the  apparent  faults 
of  the  devoted  statesman  than  the  depraved  politician. 
The  drunken  man  often  conceives  of  himself  as  sober  in 
drunken  surroundings;  and  the  insane  man  usually  im- 
agines himself  as  having  a  clear  intellect  in  a  crazy  world. 
The  most  untrustworthy  man  is  the  one  most  apt  to  shout 
"liar." 

There  is  no  more  classic  instance  of  the  principle  than 
the  correspondence  between  Coleridge  and  DeQuincey  in 
regard  to  the  unfortunate  habit  that  vitiated  the  lives  of 
them  both.  Each  excuses  himself  for  succumbing  to 
the  influence  of  opium,  but  each  sees  no  excuse  for  the 
other. 

The  tendency,  however,  is  not  confined  to  individual 
persons:  it  appears  in  social  groups.  It  is  generally  a 
class,  the  Pharisaic  respectability,  that  Jesus  has  in  mind 
when  He  uses  the  term  hypocrite.  The  hypocrite  who, 


162  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

because  of  a  heavy  plank  or  beam  in  his  own  eye,  can- 
not see  clearly  to  take  the  speck  out  of  his  brother's  eye 
is  best  exemplified  by  the  Pharisee. 

This  hypocrisy  seems  to  have  been  entirely  unconscious. 
The  Pharisee  took  himself  seriously  as  an  example  of  the 
ideal  life.  Nevertheless  he  was  a  hypocrite — an  actor — 
because  the  part  which  he  assumed  in  life  was  not  his 
real  character. 

But  the  Pharisee,  maintaining  strict  religious  devotions 
and  giving  as  a  matter  of  course  one  tenth  of  all  that  he 
possessed,  was,  to  say  the  least,  not  worse  in  this  regard 
than  is  the  average  self-satisfied  respectability  to-day. 
There  is  a  strange  magic  in  the  mere  idea  of  respectability 
which  renders  all  who  take  it  seriously  more  or  less  un- 
conscious of  the  evil  in  the  common  sins  of  respectability. 
No  one  for  example  who  lives  in  these  days  can  fail  to 
be  aware  that  to  the  average  mind  in  our  civilization 
the  reported  cruelties  of  the  soviet  government  in  Russia 
seem  vastly  more  atrocious  than  the  undoubted  cruelties 
of  the  Romanoff  dynasty  a  few  years  ago.  The  Romanoff 
butchers  maintained  an  anointed  respectability. 

This  natural  tendency  to  let  the  social  standing  of  a 
class  of  people  temper  our  feeling  in  regard  to  wrongs 
which  it  commits  constantly  lands  us  in  the  wildest  ab- 
surdities. Genuine  Christianity,  from  the  beginning,  has 
frequently  been  under  the  condemnation  of  a  superior  re- 
spectability. The  Crucifixion  was  but  the  first  of  numer- 
ous incidents  of  like  nature. 

The  early  Church  in  the  Roman  Empire  found  itself 
under  similar  condemnation.  We  noted  in  the  Introduc- 
tory Chapter  that  St.  Paul  found  the  Christian  society, 
throughout  the  empire,  made  up  largely  of  the  socially  less 
esteemed  elements:  and  Roman  History  records  the  im- 
pression held  quite  generally  by  the  higher  classes  of  First 


ATTITUDE  TOWARD  IMPERFECTION     163 

Century  Rome  in  regard  to  this  new,  despised,  prole- 
tarian religion.  It  tells  us  that  the  respectability  of  Rome 
actually  believed  that  the  slaying  and  eating  of  infants 
was  a  part  of  Christian  ritual.  But  this  same  respecta- 
bility, so  shocked  at  cruelties  which  never  occurred,  found 
its  most  desirable  recreation  at  the  circus  where  the  blood 
of  beasts  and  of  men  was  poured  out  lavishly  for  its  en- 
tertainment. 

Familiar  facts  like  these  should  make  us  more  wary 
than  we  are  of  taking  for  granted  all  that  we  hear  and 
read  to-day  in  regard  to  the  atrocious  behavior  of  the 
discontented  element  in  society.  The  average  American 
is  probably  not  much  more  accurate  in  his  understanding 
of  the  various,  conflicting,  radical,  social  ideas  now  taught 
as  was  the  average  well-to-do  Roman  in  his  understanding 
of  the  Church  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul. 

In  the  case  of  anarchy,  for  example,  the  public  for  a 
generation  has  had  an  hysterical  fear  of  the  very  name. 
Not  that  it  has  had  any  real  understanding  of  what  the 
name  means,  for  in  matters  of  this  kind  understanding  and 
hysterical  fear  are  not  usually  found  together.  But  news- 
papers have  frothed  and  legislatures  have  legislated  with 
a  view  to  setting  forth  anarchy  as  the  ultimate  horror 
of  society.  European  thinkers  have  chuckled  when  they 
remembered  that  the  refined  William  Morris  and  the  gentle 
Tolstoi  were  avowed  and  characteristic  Anarchists,  pro- 
hibited by  act  of  the  American  Congress  from  entering 
the  United  States. 

Here  again  is  a  striking  illustration  of  the  principle 
of  the  mote  and  the  beam.  For  of  course  anarchy  means 
without  power — without  rule.  It  is  the  theory  of  social 
life  which  would  leave  men  ungoverned  and  allow  them 
to  develop  unhampered,  each  in  his  own  way,  the  theory 
taking  for  granted  the  rather  large  assumption  that  people 


164  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

will  normally,  if  left  to  their  own  instincts,  refrain  from 
over-reaching  or  injuring  one  another. 

There  is  little,  if  any,  difference  between  this  idea  and 
that  which  is  covered  by  the  term  laissez  faire.  The  laissez 
faire  policy  is  that  which  allows  industry  and  business  to 
take  their  natural  course  unimpeded  by  legal  or  legislative 
restraint.  Let  the  competitive  struggle  rage  unhampered 
and  let  the  fittest,  from  Mammon's  standpoint,  survive. 
Naturally  enough,  on  the  principle  under  consideration, 
those  men  in  Congress  who  were  most  enthusiastic  for 
this  economic  laissez  faire  were  the  most  violent  in  their 
opposition  to  anarchy.  We  considered  in  the  Eighth  Chap- 
ter the  natural  results  of  laissez  faire :  and  it  is  very  fitting 
that  those  who  were  willing  to  maintain  the  system  which 
brings  disease  and  demoralization  to  women  and  children, 
and  which  so  thoroughly  deforms  and  discolors  the  beauti- 
ful, should  vehemently  oppose  the  system  of  Tolstoi  and 
Morris.  We  would  naturally  expect  that  those  suffering 
from  the  laissez  faire  beam  would  be  most  earnest  in  re- 
moving the  anarchistic  mote. 

The  principle  crops  out  everywhere.  It  is  manifested 
just  as  clearly  in  the  attitude  of  the  conservative  mind 
toward  those  who  think  that  society  is  to  be  redeemed 
by  revolutionary  systems  which  are  utterly  different  from 
anarchy.  The  syndicalist  for  example  is  severely  and  not 
unjustly  attacked  because  he  advocates  sabotage — the  com- 
paratively mild  sabotage  which  retards  production  as  a 
protest  against  inadequate  wages.  Perhaps  he  tampers 
with  machinery  in  a  way  to  make  it  less  effective  or  per- 
haps he  diminishes  the  amount  of  his  labor  effort  during 
a  given  time,  getting  out  only  five  cars  of  ore  when  he 
could  easily  get  out  eight. 

No  other  policy  on  the  part  of  labor  ever  so  angered 
employers  as  does  this  type  of  sabotage.  And  yet,  as 


ATTITUDE  TOWARD  IMPERFECTION     165 

we  have  already  had  occasion  to  recall,  sabotage  of  a 
much  worse  type  is  a  common  practice  of  the  owners  of 
industry.  In  fact  a  famous  case  of  sabotage  which  oc- 
curred some  years  ago  was  carried  out  by  a  dyer  in  a 
silk  factory  who  deliberately  compounded  a  dye  formula 
wrongly  in  order  to  get  a  chemical  reaction  that  indicated 
adulterations  in  the  silk  and  revealed  to  the  world  that 
manufacturers  practice  sabotage  at  the  expense  of  the 
public. 

A  number  of  forms  of  this  capitalistic  sabotage  were 
mentioned  in  the  Eighth  Chapter  in  another  connection. 
They  are  recalled  here  merely  to  insist  that  the  adultera- 
tion, whether  poisonous  or  not,  of  food,  the  use  of  glucose 
or  shoddy  in  what  purports  to  be  pure  silk  or  pure  wool, 
the  closing  of  factories  and  mines  in  order  to  keep  the 
prices  of  mine  and  factory  products  high,  the  various 
devices  by  which  the  large  and  fair  fruit  in  a  container 
is  made  to  conceal  the  small  and  imperfect  fruit,  and 
the  construction  of  bottles  and  baskets  in  such  a  way  that 
they  appear  to  contain  more  than  they  do;  are  all  forms 
of  sabotage  fully  as  sinful  as  any  other  form  whether 
the  law  calls  them  criminal  or  not.  Labor  sabotage,  as 
a  rule,  is  to  capitalistic  sabotage  as  the  mote  is  to  the 
beam. 

Another  case  very  much  in  point  is  that  of  the  Socialists 
some  of  whom  have  written  in  such  a  way  as  to  make 
the  wholly  irrelevant  doctrines  of  atheism  and  free  love 
essential  parts  of  the  socialist  system.  But  even  if  these 
irrelevancies  were  actually  essential  to  Socialism  no  up- 
holder of  the  Mammon-worshipping  society  would  be  in  a 
position  to  pass  judgment  because  his  system  keeps  many 
men  at  toil  so  long  that  they  have  no  opportunity  to  wor- 
ship God  and  pays  many  others  such  inadequate  wages 
that  they  cannot  support  families.  Child-labor  and  the 


166  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

unremitting  employment  of  potential  mothers  are  immeas- 
urably more  destructive  of  family  life  than  all  the  theories 
of  the  wildest  social  rebels. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  great  war  an  American  Social- 
ist, addressing  a  crowd  in  a  mining  camp,  took  sweet  re- 
venge by  saying: — "Our  opponents  tell  us  that  we  Social- 
ists intend  to  wreck  the  state,  destroy  the  family  and  cor- 
rupt religion.  War  is  upon  us.  You  know  what  that 
means.  Good  Lord,  they've  beaten  us  to  it." 

A  system  that  necessitates  war — a  system  that  even 
allows  war — has  such  a  beam  in  its  eye  that  the  vision 
impeding  defects  of  the  half  baked  theorists  are  motes  in 
comparison. 

Or  again,  not  to  be  impartial  to  any  special  theory, 
there  is  the  Bolshevik.  No  intelligent  person  accepts  all 
the  tales  of  atrocities  that  have  come  out  of  Russia  in 
recent  years;  but  even  allowing  for  a  larger  percentage 
of  truth  in  the  stories  than  the  most  meager  understand- 
ing of  psychology  would  permit  us  to  allow,  we  have  to 
remember  that  Russian  cruelty  did  not  originate  with 
the  Bolsheviki.  The  conservative,  Romanoff  Russian  with 
his  Siberian  Hell  and  his  tax-gatherers  wielding  the  bloody 
scourge — the  royalist  hypocrite — of  that  unhappy  country 
is  in  no  position  to  reprove  his  Bolshevik  brother. 

One  further  illustration  out  of  a  thousand  that  might 
be  chosen  will  more  than  suffice.  It  is  the  hypocrisy  of 
the  employing  class  which,  during  industrial  struggles, 
always  talks  volubly  of  law  and  order.  So  cynical  have 
the  radical  social  agitators  become  in  regard  to  this  matter 
that  they  commonly  call  the  industrial  masters  "the  law 
and  morder  crowd."  These  agitators  have  seen  too  much 
to  be  anything  but  humorously  impressed  when  business 
magnates  in  time  of  labor  strife  prate,  as  they  incessantly 
do,  of  law  and  order.  We  have  had  occasion  in  an  earlier 


ATTITUDE  TOWARD  IMPERFECTION     167 

chapter  to  note  Lloyd's  abundant,  incontrovertible  evidence 
of  lawless  and  murderous  conduct  on  the  part  of  the  build- 
ers of  the  great  trusts ;  and  the  writer  has  seen  the  masters 
of  a  large  mining  community,  while  boasting  an  adherence 
to  law  and  order,  usurp  every  function  of  government  in 
defiance  of  the  national  and  state  constitutions.  A  state 
law  in  Arizona  explicitly  provides  for  peaceful  picketing 
in  time  of  strikes  but  corporation  controlled  city  govern- 
ments in  that  state  pass  ordinances  rendering  the  state  law 
ineifective — a  typical  alaw  and  order"  policy.  The  in- 
dustrial master  cares  little  for  any  law  and  order  that 
does  not  help  him  in  his  business. 

To  be  sure  it  would  not  be  fair  to  attribute  all  the 
violence  during  an  industrial  conflict  to  the  masters  of 
industry.  Men,  when  fighting  as  they  believe  for  their 
wives  and  children,  whether  in  international  or  industrial 
war,  are  inclined  to  be  violent.  But  we  are  never  in 
much  danger  of  underestimating  the  violence  of  strikers. 
For  as  we  have  already  noted  the  distribution  and — shall 
we  not  say  ? — production  of  news  can  be  in  large  measure 
controlled  by  industrial  magnates.  It  is  what  they  want 
the  public  to  believe  that  in  predominant  measure  goes 
over  the  wires.  If  their  agencies  send  out  word  that  what 
was  really  an  unprovoked  attack  upon  strikers  was  self- 
defense  against  them,  the  unwary  public  is  going  to  believe 
the  false  account,  although  no  person  conversant  with  such 
matters  ever  takes  seriously  what  he  reads  in  inspired 
newspapers  concerning  an  industrial  struggle. 

Moreover  it  would  be  almost  impossible  for  strikers 
against  any  large  industrial  establishment  to  perpetrate 
a  great  outrage  unless  the  owners  of  the  establishment 
wished  to  have  it  perpetrated.  For  in  almost  all  instances 
these  owners  have  the  forces  of  the  law  at  their  disposal 
and  they  can  deputize  sheriff's  assistants  without  limit 


168  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

in  the  rare  cases  in  which  they  cannot  secure  the  state 
militia.  Besides  they  are  practically  always  conversant 
with  the  plans  of  the  strikers  because  of  the  invariable 
presence  of  their  detectives — a  fact  which  Mr.  Sidney 
Howard's  recent,  extremely  conservative  work  on  "The 
Labor  Spy"  puts  forever  out  of  the  realm  of  doubt. 

In  this  connection  we  should  always  bear  in  mind  the 
fact  that  each  party  in  a  labor  dispute  considers  the  popu- 
lar approval  of  its  cause  very  desirable.  No  labor  leader 
would  be  much  inclined  to  risk  popular  condemnation  by 
permitting  a  violent  outrage  and  any  one  who  has  seen 
a  strike  from  the  inside  knows  that  the  leaders  are  always 
on  the  alert  to  keep  irresponsible,  individual  strikers  or 
their  sympathizers  from  rash  action.  On  the  other  hand 
it  is  practically  always  advantageous  to  those  against  whom 
the  strike  is  directed  if  there  be  violence  on  the  part 
of  the  strikers  since  it  turns  the  public  against  the  strike. 
That  they  frequently  instigate  violence  among  the  workers 
through  the  influence  of  spies  no  competent  observer 
doubts  any  longer. 

When,  therefore,  the  owners  of  industrial  plants  are 
loud  in  their  abuse  of  strikers  as  violent  and  bloodthirsty 
it  is  hard  not  to  feel  that  the  Master  would  say: — "You 
hypocrite,  first  cast  the  plank  out  of  your  own  eye,  and 
then  you  shall  see  clearly  to  take  the  speck  out  of  your 
brother's  eye." 

'  Now  it  is  peculiarly  difficult  for  certain  minds  to  com- 
prehend facts  like  these.  If  a  man  tries  to  be  fair  and 
kindly  in  a  discussion  of  an  unpopular  idea  which  he 
himself  does  not  accept,  he  will  surely  be  accused  of 
accepting  it.  If  he  attempts  to  tell  fairly,  from  their 
point  of  view,  just  what  the  Anarchists  actually  think, 
he  will  be  called  an  Anarchist:  if  he  tries  to  enter  the 


ATTITUDE  TOWARD  IMPERFECTION     169 

real  mind  of  the  Socialist  or  Bolshevik  and  treat  their 
views  sympathetically,  he  must  expect  to  be  described  as 
a  red  radical:  and  it  is  not  unknown  even  for  a  man  of 
sympathetic  insight  to  be  dubbed,  in  the  same  editorial 
column,  as  both  an  Anarchist  and  a  Socialist  although 
Anarchy  is,  as  we  have  noted,  the  exact  opposite  of 
Socialism. 

That  is  of  course  the  extreme  of  intellectual  perversity 
but  it  is  not  uncommon  for  men  and  women  to  reach  such 
perversity.  It  is  an  imperviousness  of  mind  well  recog- 
nized by  Jesus  and  likened  by  Him  to  the  nature  of  dogs 
and  pigs.  In  other  words  the  Saviour  took  full  account 
of  the  important  fact  that  some  people  are  so  mentally 
beclouded  by  prepossessions  and  prejudices  as  to  be  in- 
capable of  ascertaining  truth  not  in  accordance  with  their 
peculiar  views.  He  indicates  that  no  possible  good  can 
come  of  discussing  with  such  persons  facts  unpalatable  to 
them. 

It  is  especially  true  of  those  who  hold  eccentric  religious 
notions.  A  Seventh  Day  Adventist  could  not  be  affected 
in  the  least  by  any  disconcerting  facts  of  Biblical  criticism. 
The  mind  of  the  thoroughly  convinced  Christian  Scientist 
is  not  open  to  the  acceptance  of  some  of  the  demonstrated 
incongruities  in  the  life  and  teaching  of  Mrs.  Eddy.  The 
old  line  Mormon  is  not  open  to  conviction  with  regard 
to  the  absurdities  of  his  "revelation." 

This  last  case  was  clearly  demonstrated  by  the  late 
Bishop  Spaulding  of  Utah  who  found  that  in  the  Mormon 
Book  of  Abraham  there  were  some  actual  reproductions 
of  Egyptian  inscriptions  with  what  purported  to  be  Eng- 
lish translations.  He  sent  copies  of  these  inscriptions  to 
several  of  the  leading  Egyptologists  in  America  and 
abroad,  requesting  them  to  send  him  translations:  and 
they  all,  working  independently  of  each  other,  obtained 


170  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

practically  the  same  results  which  bore  no  resemblance 
to  the  interpretations  given  in  the  Book  of  Abraham. 
However,  when  the  bishop  told  of  his  experiment  to  a 
more  than  ordinarily  well-informed  Mormon  he  was  ad- 
monished that  a  true  believer  would  always  accept  the 
teaching  of  the  Church  in  preference  to  anything  that 
outsiders,  no  matter  how  learned,  might  say.  The  publi- 
cation of  these  facts  has  not  caused  even  a  slight  ripple 
of  unbelief  in  Mormondom. 

But  we  all  have  the  same  failing  to  a  greater  or  less 
degree.  It  tends  to  become  more  marked  with  increasing 
years;  and  unless  a  man  trains  himself  when  young  to  a 
spirit  of  receptivity  for  new  and  unaccustomed  ideas,  his 
later  years  are  bound  to  be  full  of  a  stiff  intolerance. 
Mental  rheumatism  is  as  common  a  malady  among  the 
aged  as  is  physical  rheumatism. 

Intellectual  agility  indeed  is  not  any  too  common 
among  those  who  are  not  aged:  and  Jesus  considered  it 
a  waste  of  time  to  try  to  affect  certain  minds.  "Do  not 
give  that  which  is  holy  to  the  dogs,  and  do  not  throw 
your  pearls  in  front  of  pigs." 

This  is  a  teaching  that  every  strong  man  must  ponder 
carefully  because  a  coward  might  try  to  take  advantage 
of  the  words  and  hold  his  peace  when  a  courageous  ex- 
pression of  conviction  was  necessary.  But  if  it  is  some- 
times the  refuge  of  cowardice  to  hide  behind  these  words, 
at  other  times  it  is  the  height  of  futility  to  ignore  them 
and  attempt  to  convince  the  incorrigible. 

When  for  example  a  nation  is  frothing  with  the  war 
madness  it  would  be  impossible  for  the  Angel  Gabriel 
to  convince  the  people  of  the  truth  of  Christ's  doctrine 
of  peace.  When  the  dogs  of  war  are  loosed  and  the  profi- 
teering swine  are  wallowing  in  blood,  he  who  casts  the 
precious  gems  of  the  Gospel  of  Peace  before  them  will 


ATTITUDE  TOWARD  IMPERFECTION     171 

surely  see  them  turn  and  rend  him.  At  such  a  time  even 
a  leader  of  the  Church  if  he  preached  the  literal  meaning 
of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  would  find  himself  viciously 
attacked  by  the  Church  as  a  whole. 

The  principle  here  involved  was  discussed  in  the  Seventh 
Chapter  where  defective  spiritual  vision  and  its  cure  were 
considered  at  length.  It  was  there  assumed  that  the  per- 
fecting of  one's  spiritual  vision  went  along  with  the  in- 
creasing of  the  fitness  of  his  character  for  citizenship  in 
the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  Only  in  the  love  which  is  the 
first  essential  of  such  a  character  can  there  be  that  eager 
sympathetic  understanding  which  can  see  actual  facts  with 
unimpeded  vision. 

This  teaching  should  be  emphasized  at  this  point.  For 
the  intellectual  stiffness  touched  upon  in  the  latter  part 
of  the  passage  under  consideration  is  a  severe  strain  upon 
the  loving  disposition  of  any  one  who  runs  afoul  of  it. 
To  contend  with  it,  in  any  of  its  various  manifestations, 
is  an  exasperating,  trying  experience. 

But  a  follower  of  Jesus  has  to  overcome  such  exaspera- 
tion in  the  spirit  indicated  in  the  former  part  of  the 
passage.  He  has  to  remember  his  own  weakness  along 
the  same  line  and  that  he  himself  is  likely  to  present 
an  impervious  mind  to  facts  not  in  line  with  his  predilec- 
tions. Being  subject  himself  to  unfavorable  judgment,  he 
must  be  careful  not  to  pass  judgment. 

Moreover  it  can  do  no  possible  good  to  mete  out  con- 
demnation. Sympathy  is  the  only  force  that  can  supply 
the  need  which  condemnation  tries  to  fill.  Though  there 
are  notable  exceptions,  men  are  pretty  much  the  same 
under  the  same  conditions.  Those  who  have  riches  are, 
in  the  view  of  Jesus,  almost  certain  to  have  deep-seated 
spiritual  defects;  and  those  who  are  poor  are  more  than 
likely  to  have  a  large  portion  of  saving  grace.  The  average 


172  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

labor  leader  if  he  were  the  head  of  a  great  trust  would 
feel,  think,  and  act  as  does  the  head  of  a  great  trust: 
the  head  of  a  trust,  on  the  other  hand,  if  he  were  a  labor 
leader  would  be  like  the  average  labor  leader. 

Therefore  the  business  magnate  during  industrial  strife 
may  justly  ask  for  the  sympathy  of  the  public  and,  for 
that  matter,  of  even  the  strikers  themselves  in  his  extreme 
difficulties.  But  he  puts  himself  in  a  very  absurd  position 
if  he  asks  for  that  sympathy  and  then  withholds  all  sym- 
pathy from  his  opponents.  The  Gospel  of  Christ  ceases 
to  come  into  play  wherever  and  to  whatever  extent  loving 
sympathy  is  lacking. 

The  value  of  such  sympathy — and  this  is  the  larger 
meaning  of  the  passage  in  hand — is  due  to  the  law  of 
spiritual  reciprocity  which  plays  so  great  a  part  in  the 
teaching  of  Jesus.  Misunderstanding  arouses  misunder- 
standing, condemnation  falls  upon  those  who  condemn, 
hate  begets  hate,  there  can  be  no  forgiveness  to  him  who 
has  not  a  forgiving  spirit,  sympathy  engenders  sympathy, 
and  love  produces  love. 

Nevertheless  if  the  spirit  of  condemnation  is  strong 
within  us  there  is  one  excellent  use  to  which  it  may  be 
put  and  that  is  to  turn  it  upon  ourselves.  The  repentance 
or  spiritual  revolution  which  is  the  beginning  of  the  gospel 
of  preparation  for  the  near-approaching  Kingdom  will 
have  this  effect :  it  will  make  individual  persons  and  social 
groups  turn  the  severe  criticism  which  they  have  hitherto 
poured  out  upon  others,  in  upon  themselves:  and  it  will 
cause  them  to  make  in  behalf  of  others  those  liberal  ex- 
cuses and  kindly  indulgences  which  they  can  always  dis- 
cover in  behalf  of  themselves.  Such  repentance  is  pre- 
requisite to  all  peace  without  and  it  must  precede  any 
peace  within. 

Once  more  then  we  are  at  the  fountain  head  of  doc- 


ATTITUDE  TOWARD  IMPERFECTION     173 

trine.  "He  who  abases  himself  shall  be  exalted."  The 
man  who  condemns  himself  and  is  liberal  toward  the  faults 
of  others  necessarily  enlarges  the  field  of  his  experience: 
he  lives  in  a  bigger  world. 

But  it  is  especially  important  to  bring  this  truth  to 
bear  upon  the  life  of  social  groups,  of  nations  in  particular. 
For  if  the  ideal  here  set  forth  is  that  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven,  the  spirit  of  the  Jingo  is  that  of  Hell.  During 
the  week  when  the  Peace  delegates  at  Versailles  were 
working  out  the  problem  of  the  Shantung  Peninsula 
one  of  the  worst  of  the  American  Jingo  papers  had  in  one 
corner  of  a  page  an  editorial  article  urging  that  the  United 
States  grab  some  land  in  Mexico,  and  in  the  opposite 
corner  of  the  same  page  a  cartoon  picturing  Japan  as  a 
thief  carrying  away  Shantung.  The  Christian  nation 
would,  while  not  condoning  imperial  avarice,  try  to  un- 
derstand more  sympathetically  Japan's  point  of  view  but 
would  be  bitterly  severe  upon  any  imperialism  at  home. 
England  should  realize  that  if  imperial  arrogance  is  bad 
in  Berlin  or  in  Paris  it  is  just  as  bad  in  London.  Any 
investigating  committee  from  the  United  States  Congress 
can  easily  unearth  cases  of  cattle  stealing  and  worse  atroci- 
ties on  the  part  of  Mexicans  but  a  Christian  attitude  on 
the  part  of  the  United  States  would  make  large  allowances 
for  an  oppressed,  unfortunate  people  but  it  would  make 
no  allowance  at  all  for  Americans  who  perpetrate  the 
same  outrages  against  Mexicans.  "Do  not  pass  judgment 
in  order  that  you  may  not  have  judgment  passed  upon 
you :  for  the  kind  of  judgment  that  you  pass  shall  be  passed 
upon  you,  and  by  the  rule  with  which  you  measure  you 
shall  be  measured." 


THE  NATURE  OF  CITIZENSHIP  IN  THE 
HEAVENLY  REALM 


ASK,  AND  IT  SHALL  BE  GIVEN  TO  YOU;  SEEK,  AND  YOU 
SHALL  FIND;  KNOCK,  AND  IT  SHALL  BE  OPENED  TO  YOU: 
FOR  EVERY  ONE  WHO  ASKS  RECEIVES,  AND  EVERY  ONE 
WHO  SEEKS  FINDS,  AND  TO  EVERY  ONE  WHO  KNOCKS  IT 
IS  OPENED.  OR  WHAT  MAN  IS  THERE  OF  YOU  WHO, 
WHEN  HIS  SON  ASKS  FOR  BREAD,  WILL  GIVE  HIM  A 
STONE?  OR  WHO  IF  HE  ASKS  FOR  A  FISH  WILL  GIVE  HIM 
A  SNAKE?  THEREFORE  IF  YOU  WHO  ARE  BAD  KNOW  HOW 
TO  GIVE  GOOD  GIFTS  TO  YOUR  CHILDREN,  HOW  MUCH 
MORE  WILL  YOUR  FATHER  IN  HEAVEN  GIVE  GOOD  THINGS 
TO  THOSE  WHO  ASK  HIM?  THEREFORE  ALL  THINGS 
WHATEVER  THAT  YOU  WOULD  HAVE  MEN  DO  TO  YOU,  DO 
JUST  THE  SAME  TO  THEM:  FOR  THIS  IS  THE  LAW  AND 
THE  PROPHETS. 

ENTER  THROUGH  THE  NARROW  GATE:  BECAUSE  THE 
GATE  IS  BROAD  AND  THE  ROAD  IS  WIDE  LEADING  TO 
DESTRUCTION  AND  THERE  ARE  MANY  GOING  THROUGH 
IT:  BECAUSE  THE  GATE  IS  NARROW  AND  THE  ROAD  IS 
CONSTRICTED  LEADING  INTO  LIFE,  AND  FEW  ARE  FIND- 
ING IT. 

LOOK  OUT  FOR  FALSE  PROPHETS  WHO  COME  TO  YOU  IN 
SHEEP'S  SKIN  BUT  INSIDE  ARE  RAGING  WOLVES.  YOU 
SHALL  KNOW  THEM  FROM  THEIR  FRUITS.  DO  PEOPLE 
GATHER  GRAPES  FROM  THORNS  OR  FIGS  FROM  THISTLES? 
THUS  EVERY  GOOD  TREE  MAKES  GOOD  FRUIT  AND  THE 
ROTTEN  TREE  MAKES  BAD  FRUIT.  A  GOOD  TREE  IS  NOT 
ABLE  TO  MAKE  BAD  FRUIT  AND  A  ROTTEN  TREE  IS  NOT 
ABLE  TO  MAKE  GOOD  FRUIT.  EVERY  TREE  THAT  DOES  NOT 
MAKE  GOOD  FRUIT  IS  CUT  DOWN  AND  THROWN  INTO  THE 
FIRE.  THEREFORE  FROM  THEIR  FRUITS  YOU  SHALL  KNOW 
THEM. 

NOT  EVERY  ONE  WHO  SAYS  TO  ME  LORD,  LORD,  SHALL 
ENTER  THE  KINGDOM  OF  HEAVEN  BUT  THE  ONE  WHO 
DOES  THE  WILL  OF  MY  FATHER  IN  HEAVEN.  MANY 
SHALL  SAY  TO  ME  IN  THAT  DAY,  "LORD,  LORD,  HAVE  WE 
NOT  PROPHESIED  IN  YOUR  NAME,  AND  IN  YOUR  NAME 
THROWN  OUT  DEVILS,  AND  IN  YOUR  NAME  DONE  MANY 
WORKS  OF  POWER?"  AND  THEN  I  WILL  CONFESS  TO 
THEM,  "I  NEVER  KNEW  YOU:  GO  AWAY  FROM  ME,  YOU 
DOERS  OF  LAWLESSNESS." 

(Matthew  VII:  7-23.) 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  NATUKE  OF   CITIZENSHIP  IN   THE   HEAVENLY  KEALM 

THE  last  part  of  the  section  discussed  in  the  last 
chapter  gives  the  theme  for  a  long  passage  upon 
fitness  and  unfitness  for  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven, 
and  that  passage  is  the  subject  of  the  present  chapter. 
Those  words  concerning  the  non-receptivity  of  dogs  and 
pigs  to  holy  and  precious  things  are  an  application  of  a 
spiritual  law  which  is  of  the  utmost  importance  in  prac- 
tical living — the  law  that  to  receive,  understand  and  ap- 
preciate that  which  is  highest  and  best  in  life  one  must 
have  in  him  something  of  the  nature  of  that  which  he 
is  to  appreciate. 

There  are,  for  example,  people  who  have  no  poetry  in 
their  make-up  and  to  whom  the  most  exalted  verse  is 
an  unmitigated  bore.  There  are  others  so  lacking  mathe- 
matically that  they  cannot  comprehend  the  simplest  geo- 
metric figures.  Incapacity  to  appreciate  art  and  music 
also  is  extremely  common:  and,  as  has  already  been  men- 
tioned, millions  of  Americans,  worshipping  in  buildings 
that  are  hideous,  sing  hymns  which,  to  say  nothing  of 
their  literary  decrepitude,  are  musically  depraved. 

It  is  not  strange  then  that  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven, 
to  appreciate  which  requires  a  more  refined  taste  than 
does  any  other  kind  of  appreciation,  should  be  trampled 
under  the  feet  of  canine  and  porcine  materialism.  It 
would  be  hard  enough  to  eradicate  the  vitiated  tastes, 
literary  and  artistic,  of  a  generation  accustomed  to  the 
present-day  newspapers  and  moving  pictures:  but  how 

177 


178  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

much  more  difficult  it  would  at  first  seem  to  eradicate 
those  coarse,  worldly  habits  of  mind  which  make  us  callous 
to  the  fine  elements  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven. 

It  is  clear,  however,  that  just  as  those  whom  Jesus 
calls  dogs  and  swine  fail  to  appreciate  Heavenly  things 
because  they  lack  Heavenly  qualities,  so  they  who  would 
appreciate  and  enter  the  Kingdom  must  have  the  spirit 
of  the  Kingdom  within  them.  Now  the  first  requisite  for 
receiving  that  spirit  is  the  desire  to  have  it.  The  dogs 
and  pigs  do  not  want  the  Kingdom;  their  feeling  toward 
those  who  bring  it  to  them  is  one  of  anger  (turning  and 
rending)  and  therefore,  because  of  unfitness,  they  cannot 
have  the  privileges  of  the  Heavenly  Realm.  But  for  those 
who  desire  the  Kingdom  the  case  is  utterly  different. 
"Blessed  are  those  who  hunger  and  thirst  for  righteous- 
ness because  they  shall  be  filled,"  it  was  said  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Sermon;  and  here  the  same  promise  is 
made  again — "Ask,  and  it  shall  be  given  to  you ;  seek,  and 
you  shall  find ;  knock,  and  it  shall  be  opened  to  you." 

For  we  must  be  careful  not  to  give  the  restricted,  fool- 
ish meaning  which  is  sometimes  found  in  these  words 
after  tearing  them  from  their  context  and  making  them 
apply  to  individual  objects  of  prayer.  Because  thus  de- 
vitalized they  would  contain  all  the  absurdity  that  is  at- 
tributed to  them  in  trivial  discussions  of  the  subject  of 
prayer.  But  they  have  absolutely  no  bearing  upon  the 
problem  of  the  earnest  citizen  of  one  country  praying  for 
the  success  of  his  nation's  arms  in  war  against  another 
country  wherein  earnest  men  are  praying  that  their  arms 
may  prevail.  They  do  not  intend  to  make  us  think  of 
prayer  as  a  signed  check  by  means  of  which  the  Heavenly 
Father  allows  His  children  to  draw  out  an  unlimited  sum 
of  His  infinite  resources  to  be  used  according  to  their 
whims.  The  words,  on  the  contrary,  are  addressed  only 


THE  HEAVENLY  CITIZENSHIP          179 

to  those  who  seek  first  the  Kingdom  and  its  righteousness. 
They  have  to  do  merely  with  entrance  into  the  Kingdom ; 
for,  in  the  whole  passage  with  which  this  chapter  deals, 
both  the  gate  of  entrance  and  the  act  of  entering  into 
the  Kingdom  are  the  dominant  motives.  So  that  the 
words  promise  a  satisfactory  answer  to  the  primary  prayer 
of  all — the  first  petition  of  the  Model  Prayer,  "Thy  King- 
dom come."  What  they  definitely  intend  to  say  is: — 
"Ask  for  the  Kingdom  and  you  shall  receive  it;  seek  the 
Kingdom  and  you  shall  find  it;  knock  at  the  gate  of  the 
Kingdom  and  it  shall  be  opened  to  you." 

Thus  these  words,  while  they  do  not  promise  the  ful- 
fillment of  our  every  particular  wish,  do  offer  a  perfectly 
satisfactory  answer  to  prayer.  Taking  for  granted  that 
our  praying  to  enter  and  to  have  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven 
is  an  earnest  of  our  having  the  spirit  that  will  grow  in 
appreciating  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven,  the  words  promise 
the  gratification  of  this  deepest  desire  that  we  can 
have. 

Nor  will  it  be  out  of  place  here  to  note,  in  passing,  one 
of  the  most  notable  facts  in  regard  to  prayer — the  fact 
that  often  our  entering  into  the  spirit  of  true  prayer  with 
reference  to  something  that  we  desire  is  the  very  element 
that  makes  us  fit  to  receive  it.  Jesus  says  nothing  in  this 
passage  as  to  our  ability  or  inability  always  to  know 
what  is  good  for  us :  but  He  does  assert  that  our  Heavenly 
Father  knows  how  to  give  good  things  to  those  who  ask 
Him. 

His  greatest  and  best  possible  gift  is  citizenship  in  His 
Kingdom:  and  Jesus  assures  us  that  we  can  have  this 
citizenship  if  we  desire  it  sufficiently  to  pray  sincerely 
for  it.  To  accept  this  assurance  is  a  splendid  triumph 
of  faith  because  the  human  probabilities  are  not  reassur- 
ing. This  world  of  ours  does  not  seem  to  have  room  for 


180  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

the  Divine  Kingdom.  Prussian  militarism,  Russian  bru- 
tality, French  lasciviousness,  British  imperialism,  Ameri- 
can industrialism,  Occidental  materialism  and  Oriental 
detachment  seem  to  shut  out  all  hope  of  the  coming  upon 
earth  of  a  Heavenly  Kingdom. 

And  yet,  face  to  face  with  the  most  discouraging  facts 
in  regard  to  the  world's  condition,  Jesus  makes  the  con- 
fident assertion  that  His  Father  will  give  the  Kingdom 
to  those  who  desire  it.  The  Father  has  it  to  give  and 
He  will  no  more  withhold  eternal  life  from  His  children 
than  an  earthly  father  would  give  snakes  and  stones  to 
children  asking  fish  and  bread. 

It  goes  without  saying  moreover  that  such  a  father 
would  not  give  bad  gifts  even  if  his  children  asked  for 
them.  If  the  children  thought  snakes  and  stones  were 
good  to  eat  and  asked  to  be  served  with  them,  one  knowing 
how  to  give  good  gifts  would  not  provide  snakes  and 
stones. 

Not  so,  the  world.  For  if  a  man  desires  anything  in 
this  world  with  the  same  eagerness  that  leads  a  spiritual 
man  into  earnest  prayer,  he  is  more  than  likely  to  receive 
it  from  the  world  whether  it  be  good  for  him  or  not. 

God,  however,  in  His  infinite  wisdom  and  goodness 
gives  to  us  only  those  things  which  if  He  were  in  our 
place  He  would  desire  to  have  given  to  Him.  The  whole 
point  of  the  Law  and  the  Prophets  is  that  we  should 
maintain  a  similar  righteousness.  "All  things  whatever 
that  you  would  have  men  do  to  you,  do  just  the  same  to 
them." 

This  injunction,  although  perhaps  the  most  important, 
is  but  one  of  many  similar  New  Testament  passages  deal- 
ing with  what  we  have  clumsily  termed  spiritual  reci- 
procity. The  merciful  shall  obtain  mercy,  those  who 
expect  forgiveness  must  forgive,  those  who  are  not  severe 


THE  HEAVENLY  CITIZENSHIP          181 

in  condemning  others  will  not  be  severely  condemned,  and 
those  who  have  freely  received  should  freely  give. 

Such  reciprocity  should  be  a  part  of  the  nature  of  any 
one  who  has  the  fitness  of  character  upon  which  right  to 
citizenship  in  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  depends.  For  we 
have  found  the  Heavenly  Realm  to  be  a  Democracy  and 
no  democracy  can  long  exist  unless  its  individual  citizens 
maintain  good  moral  character.  The  essence  of  democ- 
racy is  the  recognition  of  the  equal  rights  of  others  and 
citizens  of  a  democracy  must  hold  themselves  in  leash  in 
order  to  maintain  the  high  sense  of  responsibility  and  the 
strong,  enduring  purpose  necessary  to  all  who  are  fit  to 
govern  themselves.  It  is  fundamental  to  the  life  of  the 
Heavenly  Realm  that  its  inhabitants  should  do  to  others 
whatever  they  would  have  others  do  to  them. 

This  principle  demolishes  at  once  any  possible  defense 
of  a  very  common  bit  of  hypocrisy  on  the  part  of  many 
who  take  themselves  seriously  as  Christians,  but  who  have 
no  interest  in  the  material  well-being  of  their  fellow  men. 
Of  course  it  is  easy  to  say  that  spiritual  life  is  above 
material  conditions :  and  a  Christian  who  deliberately  lim- 
ited himself  to  the  coarsest  clothing  and  most  meager  diet 
might  have  some  excuse  for  being  indifferent  to  the  worldly 
good  of  others,  however  unlikely  it  is  that  such  a  person 
would  have  that  indifference.  But  a  person  who  enjoys 
and  desires  the  pleasurable  things  of  this  life  has  no  sav- 
ing Christian  love  in  him  if  he  does  not  want  his  fellows 
to  have  goods  of  this  nature.  No  employer  has  a  right 
to  the  name  Christian  if  he  desires  large  dividends  and 
is,  at  the  same  time,  impatient  of  a  demand  for  higher 
wages.  In  fact  there  is  nothing  more  essentially  ridicu- 
lous in  modern  life  than  the  spectacle  of  industrial  mag- 
nates whose  ideal  of  success  is  to  buy  as  cheaply  and  to 
sell  as  dearly  as  possible  fuming  at  the  conduct  of  laboring 


182  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

men  who  are  trying  to  sell  their  labor  as  dearly  as  possible. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  throw  a  sheep's  skin  over  such  a 
wolfish  attitude;  and  men  in  comfortable  circumstances 
are  prone  to  wax  eloquent  over  the  value  of  material  hard- 
ships in  developing  character.  But  such  chatter  is  merely 
of  a  piece  "with  Artemus  Ward's  patriotism  when  he  in- 
sisted that  the  Civil  War  must  continue  even  if  he  had 
to  sacrifice  all  his  wife's  relatives.  It  is  well  enough  to 
welcome  the  severe  disciplines  of  life  as  helpful  to  one's 
own  personal  development;  one  cannot  grasp  spiritual 
truth  without  such  an  attitude:  but  any  one  who  has  the 
love  which  is  essential  to  Christian  living  in  his  heart 
cannot  be  indifferent  to  the  material  welfare  of  his 
brethren. 

Without  a  realization  of  this  truth  we  cannot  get  any- 
where with  the  Simple  Gospel.  As  we  find  in  another 
part  of  the  New  Testament  the  command,  "Thou  shalt 
love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself,"  is  of  like  importance  with 
the  first  and  great  commandment,  "Thou  shalt  love  the 
Lord,  thy  God,  with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul, 
and  with  all  thy  mind." 

This  teaching  is  hard  for  the  religious  enthusiast  of 
the  conservative  type  to  understand.  He  inclines  to  feel 
that  the  love  of  God  is  an  experience  not  closely  related 
to  social  life — that  the  second  commandment  (to  love  one's 
neighbor  as  oneself)  is  not  like  the  first  and  great  com- 
mandment (to  love  God  perfectly). 

Therefore  we  find  among  religious  enthusiasts  various 
inadequate  and  unessential  matters  receiving  the  attention 
which  Jesus  would  have  given  only  to  love  of  neighbor. 
He  does  not,  of  course,  say  that  doctrine  and  beliefs  are 
unimportant:  He  gives  love  of  God  first  place — calls  it 
"the  first  and  great  commandment":  He  realizes  that  it 


THE  HEAVENLY  CITIZENSHIP          183 

is  but  a  part  of  sanity  to  hold  convictions  and  beliefs  and 
to  act  in  accordance  with  them.  But  His  purpose  here  is 
to  indicate  how  that  love  of  God  which  is  the  center  of 
true  religion  shall  receive  the  human  expression  that 
brings  it  into  actual  life.  He  recognizes  no  saving  love 
of  God  which  does  not  issue  in  effective,  practical  love 
of  neighbor. 

This  neighborly,  brotherly  love,  which  necessitates  do- 
ing unto  others  as  we  would  have  them  do  to  us,  is  the 
strait  gate  and  the  narrow  road  into  the  Heavenly 
Realm.  For  immediately  after  the  command  to  do  to 
others  as  we  would  have  done  to  us  come  the  words: — 
"Enter  through  the  narrow  gate :  because  the  gate  is  wide 
and  the  road  is  broad,  leading  to  destruction  and  there 
are  many  going  through  it:  because  the  gate  is  narrow 
and  the  road  is  constricted,  leading  into  life  and  few  are 
finding  it." 

Now  in  all  conscience  some  of  the  ways  substituted 
by  religious  enthusiasm  for  the  true  way  of  life  are  nar- 
row and  constricted  enough.  Many  earnest  believers  are 
burning  with  a  notion  that  their  eternal  salvation  de- 
pends upon  their  keeping  Saturday  as  a  holy  day:  many 
others  are  convinced  that  without  baptismal  immersion 
none  can  enter  the  Kingdom  of  God :  and  millions  of  nom- 
inal Christians  believe  that  all  effective  relationship  to 
God  is  administered  by  a  specially  authorized  priesthood 
the  source  of  whose  authority  is  the  Apostolic  laying  on 
of  hands. 

But  the  holding  of  peculiar  ideas  as  to  mechanical  ways 
of  salvation — outward  ceremonies  for  inward  purification ; 
or  the  maintaining  of  strict  theological  views,  whether  true 
or  false,  will  never  save  a  soul  alive.  In  the  Twelfth 
Chapter  of  St.  Matthew  Jesus  is  reported  to  have  said : — 


184  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

"Whoever  speaks  a  word  against  the  Son  of  Man,  it  shall 
be  forgiven  him:  but  whoever  speaks  a  word  against  the 
Holy  Spirit,  it  shall  not  be  forgiven  him." 

That  which  follows  this  assertion  would  indicate  that 
blasphemy  against  the  Holy  Ghost  consists  in  refusing  to 
perform  definite  righteous  acts  when  the  Illuminating 
Spirit  within  us  has  revealed  what  is  right  and  what  is 
wrong.  For  the  same  idea  of  good  life  bringing  forth 
good  fruit  which  is  brought  out  immediately  after  the 
passage  under  discussion  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  is 
also  brought  out  after  this  passage  in  the  Twelfth  Chapter 
of  Matthew  concerning  blasphemy  against  the  Holy 
Spirit. 

It  is  interesting  moreover  to  see  how  the  principle  was 
taken  for  granted  by  St.  Paul.  He  combines  the  love  of 
God  with  the  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  the 
fellowship  of  the  Holy  Ghost :  and  the  love  of  God  cannot 
be  worked  out  into  human  living  in  any  other  way.  No 
man  who  has  the  love  of  God  in  his  heart  can  fail  to 
live  something  like  the  graceful,  gracious,  pleasing  Christ 
life  which  is  essential  to  any  fellowship  pervaded  by  a 
Holy  Spirit.  The  fellowship  of  the  Holy  Ghost  means 
nothing  unless  it  means  an  actual  state  of  social  living 
in  which  men  do  to  others  as  they  would  have  them  do  to 
themselves. 

But  it  is  easy  to  ignore  this  constricted  way  of  actual 
righteous  doing  through  the  narrow  gate  into  the  King- 
dom. "Few  are  finding  it."  For  it  is  a  very  exacting 
way.  Again  and  again  in  His  other  teaching  the  Master 
makes  His  own  work  and  His  own  program  of  more  vital 
importance  than  anything  else  in  the  world.  The  rich 
young  man  must  sell  all  that  he  possesses  in  order  to  be 
saved.  "He  who  loves  father  and  mother  more  than  me 
is  not  worthy  of  me,  and  he  who  loves  son  or  daughter 


THE  HEAVENLY  CITIZENSHIP          185 

more  than  me  is  not  worthy  of  me."  He  makes  His  Sim- 
ple Gospel — His  social  teaching — absolutely  supreme. 

He  looks  upon  any  other  point  of  view  as  absurd.  He 
ridicules  those  who  would  soften  the  meaning  or  subtract 
from  the  words  of  His  Gospel.  He  compares  those  who 
would  do  so  to  children  playing  wedding  and  funeral. 
"But  whereunto  shall  I  liken  this  generation.  It  is  like 
unto  children  sitting  in  the  market  place  and  calling  unto 
their  fellows  and  saying,  'We  have  piped  unto  you  and 
you  have  not  danced;  we  have  wailed  unto  you  and  you 
have  not  mourned.' '  A  perfect  picture  of  those  would 
modify  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus.  And  yet  there  are 
many  who  answer  the  description:  we  all  would  prefer 
to  have  the  Gospel  measure  set  to  our  tune.  As  has  been 
mentioned  before,  some  evangelical  Christian  bodies  have 
diverted  resources  that  might  be  applied  to  promote  actual 
social  welfare  into  campaigns  of  that  type  of  individual 
evangelism  which  excludes  politics,  economics,  and  social 
justice  from  the  religious  field.  Moreover  all  Churches 
are  likely  to  contain  many  who  say  that  Jesus  could  not 
have  meant  what  He  said  about  the  rich,  or  about  turn- 
ing the  other  cheek,  or  about  meekness  in  general,  or  about 
any  of  the  guide  posts  to  the  narrow  gate  on  the  constricted 
road. 

Any  way  of  life  differing  from  this  narrow  way  of 
acting  out  neighborly,  brotherly  love  is  hypocrisy.  The 
preaching  of  any  doctrine  as  a  substitute  for  this  doctrine 
of  love  issuing  in  loving  deeds  is  false  prophecy.  "Look 
out  for  false  prophets  who  come  to  you  in  sheep's  skin  but 
inside  are  raging  wolves." 

This  is  a  hard  message  but  a  vital  one  for  the  times 
in  which  we  live.  "No  man  can  serve  two  masters" ; 
and  a  man  whose  heart  is  set,  as  the  modern  heart  gener- 
ally is  set,  upon  selfish  acquisition  cannot  live  the  self- 


186  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

sacrificing  life  of  the  Gospel.  It  makes  no  difference  how 
often  a  man  performs  the  observances  of  the  Church  or 
how  orthodox  the  theological  definitions  to  which  he  sub- 
scribes may  be,  if  he  employs  little  children  and  weak 
women  at  inadequate  pay  in  order  to  increase  his  dividends 
the  fleecy  cloak  of  religion  serves  but  to  cover  a  vulpine 
rapaciousness.  No  Evangelical  is  really  washed  in  the 
Blood  of  Jesus  and  no  Sacramentarian  has  actually  par- 
taken of  the  Body  of  Christ  if  his  own  body  and  blood 
do  not  thrill  with  the  compassion  which  the  Saving  Victim 
felt  for  the  multitude. 

For  the  only  test  of  saving  grace  is  righteous  conduct. 
"You  shall  know  them  from  their  fruits."  Good  fruit 
does  not  come  on  a  bad  tree:  grapes  do  not  grow  on  thorn 
bushes  and  figs  do  not  grow  on  thistles.  Moreover  a  tree 
that  does  not  bear  good  fruit  is  fit  only  for  burning; 
and  the  obvious  inference  is  that  a  man  assuming  the 
Christian  name  but  not  doing  righteous  deeds  must  be 
cast  out  of  the  Heavenly  Realm. 

The  doing  unto  others,  then,  as  we  would  have  them 
do  unto  us  is  the  crucial,  all  important  Christian  princi- 
ple: but  it  is  one  that  is  not  always  discovered  by  those 
who  should  make  it  supreme  in  their  lives.  "Not  every 
one  who  says  to  me  'Lord,  Lord'  shall  enter  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven  but  he  who  does  the  will  of  My  Father  who 
is  in  Heaven." 

The  great  tragedy  of  life  is  to  misinterpret  that  will: 
and  the  tragedy  is  deepened  because  so  many  earnest  peo- 
ple do  this  misinterpreting.  They  say  "Lord,  Lord"; 
they  hold  the  most  finely  attenuated  theological  defini- 
tions ;  they  perform  meticulously  their  peculiar  devotional 
acts;  but  so  far  are  they  from  attaining  the  love  toward 
their  neighbors  which  they  have  for  themselves  that  they 


THE  HEAVENLY  CITIZENSHIP          187 

look  down  upon — sometimes  even  despise — those  who  have 
not  attained  their  way  of  life. 

They  are  damned  by  the  most  deadly  influence  in  life, 
self-satisfaction.  "Lord,  Lord,  have  we  not  prophesied  in 
Thy  Name,  and  in  Thy  Name  cast  out  devils,  and  in  Thy 
Name  done  many  works  of  power?"  They  have  not  the 
least  doubt  but  that  their  conduct  is  above  reproach.  And 
yet,  with  all  their  narrowness,  they  have  missed  the  narrow 
way  of  life.  Letting  their  effort  be  withdrawn  from  the 
right  way,  they  have  necessarily  entered  the  wrong  way. 
"Then  shall  I  confess  to  them  'I  never  knew  you :  go  away 
from  me,  you  doers  of  lawlessness.' ' 

This  whole  thought  is  so  emphasized  throughout  the 
New  Testament  that  we  have  to  make  it  central  in  any 
system  of  Christian  Doctrine  worthy  the  name.  The  final 
Judgment  passage  in  the  Twenty-fifth  Chapter  of  St. 
Matthew  is  a  complete  parallel  to  the  passage  under  dis- 
cussion. There,  on  the  great  day,  the  sheep  are  divided 
from  the  goats;  and  those  who  are  rejected  are  amazed 
at  their  rejection,  while  those  who  are  chosen  cannot  see 
wherein  they  have  been  so  good — possibly  because  they 
too  have  been  misled  in  their  thoughts  by  an  idea  of 
spiritual  devotion  confined  to  ritual  acts  and  dogmatic 
tenets.  But  the  whole  question  of  salvation  is  made  to 
hinge  upon  the  Simple  Gospel — the  simple  performance 
of  those  actual  works  which  flow  necessarily  from  a  heart 
in  which  neighborly,  brotherly  love  is  a  reality.  It  is  con- 
cerned, to  the  exclusion  of  any  conceivable  prior  interest, 
with  matters  like  feeding  the  hungry,  clothing  the  unclad, 
and  visiting  the  sick  and  incriminated.  "Inasmuch  as 
you  have  done  or  done  it  not  unto  the  least  of  these,  my 
brethren,  you  have  done  it  or  done  it  not  unto  me." 


188  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

Likewise  in  the  Gospel  according  to  St.  John,  which 
some  hold  to  be  primarily  concerned  with  theological  defi- 
nition, we  find  spiritual  understanding  as  well  as  salva- 
tion dependent  upon  the  doing  of  righteous  deeds.  "If 
you  continue  in  my  word,  then  you  are  my  disciples  in- 
deed, and  you  shall  know  the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall 
make  you  free." 

Even  in  St.  Paul  with  his  doctrine  of  Justification  by 
Faith,  which  has  confused  so  many  minds,  we  find,  after 
all  is  said,  that  the  doing  of  righteous  deeds  is  taught  as 
absolutely  essential.  The  Pauline  controversy  is  not,  al- 
though many  students  have  liked  to  believe  to  the  con- 
trary, as  to  whether  righteous  acts  are  necessary,  but  as 
to  how  we  can  obtain  the  power  to  perform  righteous  acts. 
We  cannot  obtain  it,  says  St.  Paul,  through  ceremonial 
acts — works  of  the  Law — but  through  faith  in  Christ. 
Through  that  faith  we  are  made  the  doers  of  good  deeds 
because  the  very  word  justification  means  not,  acquitted 
for  unrighteousness,  but  being  made  actually,  pragmati- 
cally righteous. 

But  if  any  one  misconceives  the  teaching  of  St.  Paul 
let  him  be  corrected  by  the  General  Epistle  of  James, 
which  seems  to  have  itself  misconceived  that  teaching,  but 
which  expresses  the  common  feeling  of  the  Apostolic 
Church  that  faith  without  works  is  dead — a  feeling  with 
which  St.  Paul  was  really  heartily  in  accord. 

But  whatever  any  one  else  may  have  taught,  the  teach- 
ing of  Jesus  in  the  matter  is  absolutely  clear.  Citizen- 
ship in  His  Kingdom  depends  upon  fitness  of  character 
for  such  citizenship.  The  constricted  road  and  narrow 
gate  into  the  Heavenly  Realm  are  the  actual  doing  of 
helpful  deeds  because  of  the  perfect  love  of  God  in  one's 
heart. 


THE  SUPREMACY  OF  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 


THEREFORE  WHOEVER  HEARS  THESE  WORDS  OF  MINE 
AND  ACTS  UPON  THEM  SHALL  BE  LIKE  A  WISE  MAN  WHO 
BUILT  HIS  HOUSE  UPON  THE  ROCK:  AND  THE  RAIN  CAME 
DOWN  AND  THE  RIVERS  ROSE  AND  THE  WINDS  BLEW  AND 
FELL  UPON  THAT  HOUSE  AND  IT  DID  NOT  FALL  BECAUSE 
IT  WAS  FOUNDED  UPON  THE  ROCK.  AND  EVERY  ONE  WHO 
HEARS  THESE  WORDS  OF  MINE  AND  DOES  NOT  ACT  UPON 
THEM  SHALL  BE  LIKE  A  FOOLISH  MAN  WHO  BUILT  HIS 
HOUSE  UPON  THE  SAND:  AND  THE  RAIN  CAME  DOWN  AND 
THE  RIVERS  ROSE  AND  THE  WINDS  BLEW  AND  FELL  UPON 
THAT  HOUSE:  AND  ITS  FALL  WAS  A  GREAT  ONE. 

(Matthew  VII:  24-29.) 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE   SUPREMACY   OF    THE   SIMPLE   GOSPEL 

THE  Great  Discourse  ends  with  a  parable  setting 
forth  that  characteristic  attitude  of  Jesus  to  His 
Gospel  which  was  touched  upon  in  the  last  chapter 
— His  never-failing  consciousness  that  His  teaching  de- 
mands the  exclusive,  preeminent  position  in  the  minds 
of  His  followers.  In  spite  of  the  humility  which  domi- 
nated the  entire  course  of  His  human  life  from  the 
manger  to  the  convict's  doom,  He  demands  that  nothing 
shall  be  allowed  to  come  between  us  and  the  observance 
of  the  practical  righteousness  which  He  taught.  Readapt- 
ing  the  fine  Old  Testament  concept  that  righteousness  is 
wisdom,  He  makes  the  distinction  between  those  who  hear 
His  teaching  and  follow  it  and  those  who  hear  and  do 
not  follow  it  the  distinction  between  the  wise  and  the 
foolish. 

"Therefore  whoever  hears  these  words  of  mine  and  acts 
upon  them  is  like  a  wise  man  who  built  his  house  upon  the 
rock  and  the  rain  came  down  and  the  rivers  rose  and  the 
winds  blew  and  fell  upon  that  house  but  it  did  not  fall 
because  it  was  founded  upon  the  rock.  And  every  one 
who  hears  these  words  of  mine  and  does  not  act  upon 
them  is  like  a  foolish  man  who  built  his  house  upon  the 
sand  and  the  rain  came  down  and  the  rivers  rose  and 
the  winds  blew  and  fell  upon  that  house  and  it  fell  and 
its  fall  was  a  great  one." 

The  very  last  words  of  the  Sermon,  therefore,  "and  its 
fall  was  a  great  one,"  indicate  how  preposterous  Jesus 

191 


192  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

felt  to  be  any  other  way  of  life  than  that  which  He  lived 
and  which  He  taught.  But  this  feeling  of  His  has  been 
justified  again  and  again  in  human  experience.  Those 
earthly  methods  of  building  a  social  fabric  which  differ 
so  widely  from  His  method  have  proved  thoroughly  fatu- 
ous ;  and  the  way  of  the  world  in  repeating  age  after  age 
its  ghastly  performance  of  building  on  the  sand  might 
almost  make  us  despair  of  man's  intelligence.  For  human 
history  in  the  main  is  one  stupid  round  of  construction 
of  vast  systems  of  unchristlike,  brutal  force,  each  one  of 
which  crashes  in  horrible  destruction  in  the  storm  and 
flood  and  blow  of  war.  Surely  to  reconstruct  on  obviously 
shifting  sand  like  this  is  the  work  of  incorrigible  fools. 

The  dogged  persistence  in  this  kind  of  building  even 
among  nominal  followers  of  Jesus  centuries  after  He  has 
explained  its  absurd  nature  can  be  accounted  for  only 
by  reference  to  that  animal  inheritance  in  human  nature 
which  has  been  dwelt  upon  in  another  chapter.  It  makes 
little  difference  whether  you  connect  the  fact  with  the 
idea  of  original  sin  so  prominent  in  the  great  theologies 
of  other  days,  or  with  the  modern  biological  doctrine  of 
struggle  for  existence  and  survival  of  the  fittest,  the  truth 
remains  that  it  is  instinctive  in  individual  persons  and  in 
social  groups  to  exalt  themselves  as  much  as  they  can. 

This  tendency,  as  we  have  had  so  much  occasion  to  note, 
has  received  literary  and  philosophical  expression  of  the 
highest  order  in  our  time.  Great  intellects  have  accepted 
as  a  necessary  deduction  from  science,  history,  and  con- 
temporary experience  the  doctrine  of  the  Superman — a 
teaching  that  accepts  as  eternal  necessity  the  cruel  process 
of  nature  which  develops  the  strong  at  the  expense  of 
the  weak.  It  exalts  in  every  line  of  endeavor  the  acquisi- 
tive spirit. 

That  this  spirit  dominates  our  time  no  one  can  doubt. 


SUPREMACY  OF  SIMPLE  GOSPEL        193 

Acquisition  is  the  central  aim  of  men's  effort  and  the 
measure  of  their  success  in  the  larger  number  of  all  un- 
dertakings to-day.  He  "who  can  amass  an  enormous  for- 
tune is  exalted  in  common  opinion  as  is  no  other  type 
of  man. 

As  to  the  effect  of  this  dominant  acquisitive  spirit  upon 
the  common  life  a  great  deal  was  said  in  the  chapter  on 
God  and  Mammon.  But  we  cannot  overemphasize  the 
importance  of  the  matter  and  it  is  worth  while  here  to 
reiterate  that  the  acquisitive,  grasping,  self -exalting  motive 
upon  which  the  world  is  trying  to  build  is  the  poorest 
ground  imaginable  as  a  base  for  any  lasting  social  edifice. 
It  secures  not  permanent  reconstruction  but  inevitable  de- 
struction. 

To  say  nothing  of  the  already  mentioned  disintegration 
of  journalism,  educational  facilities,  family  life,  physical 
welfare,  and  artistic  expression  due  to  Mammonism  in  its 
various  forms,  we  can  well  illustrate  the  point  in  hand 
by  the  tragedy  in  American  political  life  resulting  from 
the  unrestrained  exaltation  of  the  acquisitive  man.  The 
American  public  is  very  wary  of  placing  in  office  the  ideal- 
ist or  the  scholar,  but  the  successful  business  man  is  given 
any  office  to  which  he  may  aspire.  No  doubt  the  same 
influences  are  at  work  in  Great  Britain  more  or  less  con- 
cealed by  picturesque  titles,  for  the  essence  of  imperialism 
is  commercial  acquisition — the  exploitation,  even  to  profit- 
ing by  vices  like  the  drug  habit,  of  backward  peoples.  But 
in  America  the  facts  are  a  little  more  obvious.  What  is 
known  as  Old  Guard  Republicanism — easily  the  strongest 
single  element  in  American  politics — is  based  upon  a  more 
or  less  frank  belief  that  the  common  people  are  not  fit 
to  govern  themselves;  and  that  they  must  be  guided  and 
controlled  by  those  who  are  more  capable.  A  position 
which  might  have  a  great  deal  to  be  said  in  its  favor 


194:  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

practically  but  which  is  utterly  absurd  in  its  American 
interpretation  is  that  the  man  really  fit  for  political  leader- 
ship is  the  successful  business  man.  For  this  interpreta- 
tion holds  up  the  man  whose  dominant  trait  is  self-centered 
acquisitiveness  as  the  ideal  man  to  render  disinterested 
public  service. 

Now  of  course  human  character  is  a  complex :  and  men 
who  in  business  have  managed  cleverly  for  their  own  gain 
have  been  known,  when  in  political  office,  to  use  the  same 
cleverness  for  the  public  good.  But  the  broad  tendency 
of  acquisitive  men  in  an  acquisitive  society  is  to  base  their 
political  constructions  on  unstable  ground — to  create  ex- 
orbitant tariffs  for  the  exceptionally  strong,  like  steel  and 
woolen  manufacturers ;  to  make  large  appropriations  along 
those  lines  in  which  big  business  is  interested  like  armor 
plate  and  powder  and  trivial  appropriations  for  those 
things  in  which  big  business  is  not  interested,  like  aero- 
planes; and  to  allow  wasteful  expenditures  the  real  pur- 
pose of  which,  no  matter  what  the  ostensible  purpose  may 
be,  is  to  add  to  the  success  of  the  successful  business  man. 

It  is  but  fitting  that  this  type  of  politics  should  be 
characterized  by  a  self -laudatory  jingoism  which,  because 
the  type  naturally  lacks  refined  intelligence,  it  considers 
to  be  patriotism.  This  false  patriotism  takes  its  place 
in  the  ceaseless  round  of  acquisition,  self-exaltation,  im- 
perialism, war,  and  ultimate  destruction  which  is  the 
epitome  of  all  recorded  history.  But  the  mental  incapacity 
of  which  jingoism  is  the  expression  must  necessarily  end 
in  futility. 

In  place  of  this  futility  Jesus  Christ  offers  a  sane,  wise 
plan  of  civilization  building.  He  presents  the  plan  of  a 
Heavenly  Realm  whose  life  is  rooted  and  grounded  in  love 
and  whose  activity  is  made  up  of  effective  service. 

Now  service  is  the  real  constructive  principle  in  social 


SUPEEMACY  OF  SIMPLE  GOSPEL        195 

life.  Under  normal  conditions  it  affords  the  only  reason 
that  a  person  has  for  living.  No  one  should  receive  from 
the  commonwealth  who  does  not  contribute  to  the  general 
welfare. 

But  in  spite  of  all  the  beautiful  words  that  we  hear 
in  this  connection  we  have  very  little  actual  experience 
of  what  public  service  really  can  be.  We  have  not  ex- 
perienced thoroughgoing  service  because  that  has  not  be- 
come our  dominant  aim.  We  have  not  laid  up  a  heavenly 
treasure  of  service  because  our  vision  of  life  has  not  been 
single  and  clear  from  the  standpoint  of  service;  and  this 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  we  have  made  Mammon  paramount 
while  trying  to  serve  God. 

Therefore  the  present-day  attempts  at  service  can  hardly 
help  falling  down.  The  American  coal  industry  and 
transportation  system,  for  examples,  are  failing  miserably 
from  the  standpoint  of  service.  The  services  that  these 
two  businesses  are  supposed  to  render  are  of  inestimable 
importance,  but  to  say  that  they  are  rendering  these  serv- 
ices well  is  preposterous.  The  coal  consumer  has,  for  sev- 
eral years,  been  forced  to  pay  prices  which  according  to 
the  principle  given  in  the  Fourth  Chapter  are  so  unjust 
as  actually  to  be  theft:  and  according  to  careful  United 
States  Government  reports,  the  producers  of  perishable 
commodities,  unless  they  belonged  to  the  great  trusts,  have 
never  been  able  to  count  on  transportation.  The  railroads, 
even  when  deliberate  wrong  was  not  intended,  have  not 
rendered  fair,  economical,  and  efficient  service. 

Those  responsible  for  this  particular  inefficiency,  cover- 
ing their  grim  humor  with  sedate  faces,  have  been  able 
to  convince  large  portions  of  the  public  that  all  the  outrage 
in  the  cost  of  such  service  is  due  to  the  rapacity  of  labor. 
Many  who  are  not  ignorant  of  the  facts  of  watered  securi- 
ties and  stock  gambling  are  still  obtuse  enough  to  imagine 


196  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

that  labor  costs  are  the  main  handicap  of  railroad  service. 

But  it  is  unnecessary  to  dwell  at  length  on  the  futility, 
from  a  humanitarian  standpoint,  of  serving  Mammon. 
Mammon's  plan,  as  has  been  sufficiently  indicated,  is  to 
build  upon  the  soft  sand  of  self-exaltation  and  personal 
gain :  God's  plan  is  to  build  upon  the  rock  of  self-sacrific- 
ing service. 

It  should  not  be  forgotten,  however,  that  building  upon 
the  rock  is  extremely  difficult.  Strength  is  developed  by 
exercise  and  the  human  service  demanded  in  the  Heavenly 
Realm  is  a  hard  exercise.  So  that  any  type  of  social  reform 
that  looks  forward  to  a  soft,  easy  existence  is  doomed  to 
failure.  In  any  kind  of  society  one  strong,  hard  man  shall 
make  a  thousand  soft  ones  do  his  bidding.  The  effort  and 
restraint  of  Christian  living  produce  the  sturdiest  char- 
acters. 

Certain  forms  of  pacifism  may  have  missed  this  point 
and  we  need  not  be  distressed  at  their  failure  to  establish 
themselves.  For  the  tragedy  of  the  cruel  hardships  of  war 
does  not  lie  so  much  in  the  difficulty  involved  as  in  their 
futility.  The  courage  and  the  sacrifice  of  war  would  be 
glorious  if  they  built  up  anything — if  they  were  founded 
upon  anything  but  hate  and  misunderstanding  and  were 
not  therefore  devoted  to  falsehood  and  unreality.  The 
courage  and  sacrifice  of  the  Kingdom  is  illustrated  by  those 
physicians  who,  knowing  the  danger,  offered  their  lives 
as  a  ransom  for  many  by  exposing  themselves  to  the  yellow 
fever  mosquito  in  order  to  obtain  saving  knowledge  in 
regard  to  the  yellow  fever  germ.  That  is  to  say  their  hard, 
brave  service  was  performed  constructively,  not  in  the 
militaristic  way  which  leads  only  to  more  destruction. 

The  conclusion  of  the  whole  Sermon,  then,  is  that  wis- 
dom consists  in  building  society  upon  the  plan  of  Jesus. 


SUPREMACY  OF  SIMPLE  GOSPEL       197 

No  doubt  it  is  hard  in  an  age  unkindly  to  and  perhaps 
incapable  of  deep,  abstract  religious  thinking  to  form  an 
adequate  conception  of  the  nature  of  Jesus  Christ;  but 
it  is  difficult  for  any  one  to  contemplate  seriously  and  care- 
fully His  teaching  without  feeling  himself  to  be  at  the 
very  center  of  eternal  truth.  When  we  consider  the  great 
library  of  classic  treatises  upon  ideal  commonwealths  writ- 
ten by  the  world's  profoundest  thinkers,  and  when  we  re- 
member that  all  this  intellect  and  superb  literary  expres- 
sion expended  upon  Utopian  dreams  has  failed  quite  sig- 
nally to  convince  any  large  portion  of  mankind  as  to  the 
possibility  or  desirability  of  reconstructing  civilization  ac- 
cording to  these  plans — when,  in  other  words,  the  best  hu- 
man wisdom  fails,  the  sublimity  of  the  eternal  plan  of 
social  salvation  as  explained  by  Jesus  is  all  the  more  im- 
pressive. In  the  social  sense  when  we  identify,  as  we 
must,  His  life  with  His  message  there  is  no  difficulty 
of  thinking  of  Him  as  the  Way,  the  Truth,  and  the  Life. 

Therefore  there  is  nothing  out  of  place  or  out  of  reason 
in  upholding  a  religion  of  Jesus  on  this  basis.  Such  a 
religion  will  not  prove  shifting  sand,  but  the  bed  rock 
of  reality.  Liberal  in  its  attitude  toward  the  various 
definitions  and  understandings  of  the  nature  of  God  in 
those  matters  in  which  human  intellect  is  not  refined 
enough  to  be  accurate;  but  strictly  dogmatic  in  those  ob- 
viously valid  corrections  of  our  folly  in  social  living  which 
Jesus  makes,  such  a  religion  can  reasonably  expect  the 
assent  of  all  mankind  at  its  best. 

In  the  war  epidemic  we  learned  that  a  violent  jingo 
patriotism  can  wreck  the  finest  intellectual  and  social  fab- 
rics that  have  so  far  been  reared  upon  earth.  The  reason 
for  this  phenomenon  is  that  anything  which  calls  out  the 
spiritual  enthusiasm  of  men  calls  out  their  greatest 
strength. 


198  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

This  fact  should  be  firmly  grasped  by  all  social  mal- 
contents, revolutionaries,  and  constructive  thinkers.  There 
is  deep  in  the  heart  of  the  common  man  of  Christendom 
an  inherited  capacity  for  loyalty  to  Jesus  Christ  and  His 
message  when  truly  preached.  That  message  contains  all 
that  the  most  eager  social  reformer  could  desire :  and  that 
latent  loyalty  to  Jesus  is  the  most  potent  driving  force 
which  any  social  movement  can  procure.  No  other  force 
is  powerful  enough  for  the  work  in  hand. 

Any  social  reconstruction  that  is  built  upon  a  lesser 
motive  may  wreck  the  present  civilization  but  it  cannot 
build  up  a  lasting  new  civilization.  Any  social  revolu- 
tion, for  example,  that  is  built  upon  such  soft  sand  as 
the  worker's  mere  self-interest,  like  the  desire  to  procure 
what  one  produces  with  no  reference  to  the  great  principle 
of  service,  cannot  endure  the  storm  and  stress  of  actual 
social  living.  The  cheap  jingo  patriotism  of  the  imbecile 
in  social  enlightenment  is  a  nobler  thing  and  a  thing  that 
can  easily  overwhelm  mere  human  selfishness. 

Social  discontent  to-day  is  undoubtedly  something  far 
larger  than  the  self-interest  which  it  preaches  overmuch. 
It  has  many  thoroughly  self-sacrificing  leaders:  but  they 
would  add  infinitely  to  their  effectiveness  if  they  would 
base  this  self-sacrifice  upon  the  immovable  rock  of  Christ. 

Probably  there  is  nothing  that  works  against  their  so 
doing  as  effectively  as  does  the  failure  of  the  professing 
followers  of  Christ  to  take  Him  seriously  when  He  is 
most  in  earnest.  Those  who  call  themselves  Christians 
are  so  obviously  indifferent  to  the  actual  concerns  of  the 
Kingdom  which  Christ  made  all  important  that  those  who 
are  attracted  to  the  kind  of  society  which  that  Kingdom 
would  maintain  do  not  call  themselves  Christians — a  fact 
very  interesting  in  connection  with  the  point  that  we  noted 
in  regard  to  the  final  judgment  passages  as  to  the  surprise 


SUPEEMACY  OF  SIMPLE  GOSPEL        199 

at  their  rejection  by  those  who  were  rejected  and  the  sur- 
prise at  their  reception  by  those  who  were  received. 

So  it  is  because  nominal  Christians  fail  to  take  their 
Saviour's  doctrine  seriously  that  their  religion  does  not 
come  to  its  own.  If  those  who  have  professed  that  re- 
ligion had  really  comprehended  the  implications  of  its 
central  idea  of  a  Heavenly  Realm  coming  upon  earth, 
there  would  be  very  little  of  the  widespread  indifference 
to  the  Christian  Church  on  the  part  of  the  socially  minded, 
strong  men  and  women  who  are  working  for  greater  justice 
in  life's  business.  The  Christian  Church  has  not  given 
heartfelt  loyalty  to  the  idea  and  principles  of  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven. 

But  to-day,  as  never  before,  there  is  sounding  the 
ancient  call  to  the  Church  which  has  so  signally  failed 
to  repent  of  her  unbelief.  It  is  the  call  that  brought  the 
Christian  Church  into  being: — "Repent  ye,  for  the  King- 
dom of  Heaven  is  at  hand."  Only  by  entering  upon  that 
repentance  can  the  Church  save  herself  and  only  in  that 
repentance  is  there  salvation  for  a  war-tossed,  hate-mon- 
gering  world. 

The  modern  Church  is  somewhat  in  the  position  of  Car- 
dinal Wolsey  when  he  made  his  pathetic  plaint: — "Had 
I  but  served  God  as  diligently  as  I  have  served  the  king." 
Wolsey  was  richly  clothed  in  scarlet  and  the  Church  is 
finely  robed  and  housed,  but  these  savor  more  of  Mammon 
than  of  God.  And  yet  there  is  this  difference:  Wolsey 
was  nearing  his  inevitable  end,  but  the  Church,  if  she  so 
elects,  need  not  die;  she  has,  if  she  wants  it,  the  best  of 
her  life  before  her. 

When  the  various  warring  states  commanded  the 
Churches  within  their  borders  to  preach  a  narrow,  war- 
like patriotism  the  ministry  of  the  Church  responded  vig- 
orously to  the  demand  of  the  world.  But  there  is  a  higher 


200  THE  SIMPLE  GOSPEL 

patriotism — the  patriotism  of  "those  who  desire  a  better 
country,  even  a  Heavenly,  the  city  prepared  by  God  for 
those  of  whom  He  is  not  ashamed  to  be  called  their  God." 

If  men  can  be  stirred,  in  a  crisis,  to  lay  their  all  upon 
their  nation's  altar,  sacrificing  treasure  and  blood  to  the 
uttermost,  surely  in  this  supreme  crisis  of  history  they 
can  be  stirred  with  patriotism  for  the  Perfect  State.  The 
Heavenly  Realm  is  worthy  of  all  the  devotion,  all  the 
sacrifice,  and  all  the  enthusiasm  of  all  mankind.  If  men 
give  themselves  to  the  vital  interest  of  this  country  they 
will  not  see  their  lovely  ideals  trampled  upon  and  be- 
smirched by  politicians  and  their  fair  visions  befogged 
by  diplomats.  They  will  not  be  doomed  to  the  continual 
round  of  disappointment  that  comes  to  those  who  build 
foolishly  on  the  sand. 

"Whoever  drinks  of  the  water  that  I  shall  give  shall 
never  thirst:  but  the  water  that  I  shall  give  shall  be  a 
well  of  water  springing  up  into  everlasting  life." 


SUPKEMACY  OF  SIMPLE  GOSPEL        201 

AND  IT  CAME  ABOUT  WHEN  JESUS  HAD  FINISHED  THESE 
WOEDS  THAT  THE  CROWDS  WERE  DUMBFOUNDED  AT  HIS 
TEACHING;  FOR  HE  TAUGHT  THEM,  NOT  LIKE  THEIR 
SCRIBES,  BUT  ON  HIS  OWN  AUTHORITY. 


THE  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW. 


DEC  4    79.9,9 

/ 19900 


3  1205  00965  5927 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A     001  022  161     2 


